Torchbearer
by TheTrueMPK
Summary: Six years after the death of Darth Traya, the invasion of the true Sith draws near - and no one stands in its way but a mysterious defector and the last of the Jedi. An AU story not in continuity with TOR, the first in a series if God wills it. (Background is DSF!Revan, DSF!Exile, but the main cast is a mix of other familiar characters and original ones.) [COMPLETE]
1. Return of the Jedi

Author's Apologia: This story was first uploaded to the Star Wars Fanon Wikia on November 2, 2019. If you'd like to read it in PDF format or else get some more in-depth information on its rationale and other behind-the-scenes crap, there's a link in my user profile (failing that, you can use a search engine). Far as authorial commentary goes, I'll only give the bare bones here.

_Torchbearer_ is the first in a series (God willing) that is meant to be my own take on the idea of a _KotOR 3_ storyline. We open six years after the events of _TSL_. The background is DSF!Revan and DSF!Exile, but the cast starting off is a mix of other characters, some familiar and some original. Along with the two _KotOR_ games, the general history of the old EU leading up to them are acknowledged, and will not be contradicted any more than necessary. Past the events of _TSL_, all bets are off. Though some elements from _The Old Republic_ and other sources set later will be borrowed, nothing is guaranteed. In short, AU is the name of the game.

I've set the rating at what it is because the level of violence might perhaps warrant it, though I could be wrong (which case, be so good as to inform me). As for the genre? It's a _Star Wars_ story.

That's all I've got. Hope it's a good read.

\- MPK - Memorial of St. Charles Borromeo - November 4, 2019

* * *

**Darkness is soon to descend upon the galaxy. Bereft of the guidance of the fallen JEDI ORDER, the Galactic Republic labors to rebuild itself after the devastating War of the Star Forge. With the last remnants of Darth Revan's forces diminished and withdrawn into the Outer Rim, the free people of the galaxy believe that peace is at hand.**

**Meanwhile, in the far reaches of Unknown Space, the ancient SITH EMPIRE prepares to unleash itself in a new war of conquest and vengeance against the unsuspecting Republic.**

**The only one standing in the way of these sinister plans is a lone defector who scours the galaxy for allies. Pursued by ruthless agents of the dark side, he races to the remote planet of DANTOOINE in search of the last surviving Jedi, hoping that she can aid him in his desperate mission to stall the coming Sith invasion and preserve freedom in the galaxy...**

* * *

**Year 21,108 of the Age of the Republic**

**Six Years after the Death of Darth Traya**

**Eleven Years after the Battle of Rakata Prime**

* * *

Enough.

It should have been enough when Darth Malak's fleet had appeared over Dantooine and scoured its surface with bombs and turbolaser fire. When his legions had come and slaughtered the Jedi, brutalized the settlers, and left a wound in the galaxy where a secluded oasis of light had once been. And that hadn't even been the last time that minions of the dark side had come and defiled the fields and stone with their presence. Everything the Enclave had suffered—it should have been enough.

But as the cold, insulating quiet of the sublevel was shattered by the pandemonium of battle, Kaevee grimly understood that the Force had its own idea of _enough_.

The lone Padawan didn't often show herself, and she didn't want to now. Even as she strode through the barely-lit corridors, letting the Force guide her toward the disturbance, she was slowed by the palpable and all-too-familiar urge to run—the feeling of a noose tightening around her gut. But she urged herself onward, feverishly repeating a mantra that had sustained her for the past eleven years. "I am a Jedi, the Force is with me, I am a Jedi, the Force is with me…"

Much as she doubted that it was, however, she was far too ashamed to think of running. Her Master had always told her to trust the Force. The fact that she wasn't exactly sure what that meant was irrelevant. She still had to do it. She had to stay this time.

Groups of laigreks rushed past her, their huge compound eyes glowing like charcoal, their sword-point legs clacking across the stone floor. Long ago she had used the Force to bind their wills to hers; like her, their purpose was to guard the Enclave. In this they had served her well, keeping the salvagers of Dantooine at bay, frustrating their efforts to steal from the ruins of the Jedi. But Kaevee knew that they could not stand up to Sith, and these intruders were no mere band of lowlifes; with each passing moment, the air grew thicker with the ethereal stench of the dark side, and the sounds of mayhem soon reached her ears: heavy footfalls, inhuman shrieks, and the whines of vibroblades and they cleaved through exoskeleton and flesh.

The Padawan paused before a corner, sensing that she was close to the battle. "I am a Jedi, the Force is with me," Kaevee told herself firmly as she reached to her belt for the lightsaber that had once belonged to Master Vrook Lamar. Its blade came to life, dispelling the shadows around her with a brilliant emerald glow as she rounded the corner.

Just a stone's throw ahead, the melee was raging. The aggressors were Humans, or humanoids at any rate, clad in black uniforms with flexible, light armor plating and masks with bulging, opaque red eye-lenses. They carried a variety of vibro-weapons; some had a single blade, others a pair, and still others a double-bladed pike. They were swift, silent, and moved with such agility that it was hard to tell how many there were.

Toward the front, one of the assassins was too slow to dodge a nearby laigrek, whose slashing scythe-leg nicked his forearm. Rather than react to the pain, the man backed off a step, falling into a defensive stance. As the laigrek crouched on its hind legs, preparing to leap and skewer him, one of the assassin's partners came to his aid, his vibro-pike impaling the insectoid through the throat with a blood-curdling hiss.

Kaevee bared her teeth as she approached. Extending a hand, she used the Force to throw the wounded assassin to the side, right onto the front mandibles of another one of her pets and dousing it with blood. Feeling stronger, the Padawan lashed out at a second assassin, slamming him into a third and bowling both of them over.

Another group of laigreks emerged from a side-corridor, their more mature members spitting brief jets of fire as they joined the fray. The assassins scattered before the sudden attack, but just as quickly they regrouped and went back on the offensive despite being sorely outnumbered. They fought as a team, each individual covering for another, and the scene turned to a dizzying maelstrom of flying blades and limbs. Laigreks hissed, buzzed, and chittered as they fought and were dismembered, but the Sith remained eerily silent. Before Kaevee could choose another target, the darkness not far ahead of her was split by another lightsaber blade.

Its bloodshine glow revealed a woman in elaborate black and maroon robes. Strangely, her hood came all the way down over her eyes, ending in a sort of veil adorned with some elaborate gold embroidery. Her face waxed pale except for her lips, which were dark and seemed frozen in tranquil indifference. Laigreks pounced at her from all sides, but her lightsaber spun and whirled with terrifying grace, and each assailant fell in twitching, smoking pieces. Hardly slowed down, the woman cut a scarlet-flashing channel through the battle, straight toward Kaevee.

Then she was on her, and their blades met in an eye-searing clash of light. Without words or invocations, Kaevee called on the Force to guide her hands and feet, to recall the lessons she had been taught so long ago. But the lightsaber was clumsy and weightless in her grasp, and she turned aside only two of the dark woman's slashes before she found herself backpedaling in a frenzied panic. The red blade buzzed once by her face, then her neck.

Then the dark woman struck again, lower this time, cutting horizontally through the hilt in Kaevee's hands and leaving a smoking singe across the front of her robe. As the emerald blade vanished, Kaevee thrust out a hand and pushed with the Force; but the Sith absorbed the worst of it, only pausing in her tracks before retaliating with a telekinetic blow of her own that knocked Kaevee's breath from her and left her flat on her back. The sparking pieces of Master Vrook's lightsaber rolled across the floor beside her.

As though sensing its master's distress, one of the laigreks disengaged itself from the brawl and tried to come to her aid, but the Sith caught it in a telekinetic grip and sent it careening into a nearby wall with a splash of ochre blood. Then, not wasting a second, she flipped her saber high and advanced on her prey. She raised her hand again, and a crushing, invisible weight fell on the Padawan and pinned her to the floor.

Wheezing, Kaevee tried to fight back, but the Force was not with her, and her hands were pinioned so that she couldn't even reach for the blaster in her pocket. She didn't want her life to end this way, but even as she felt her heart ready to burst, it also fluttered with a curious sort of relief. Her own Master, Emon, had died on this world at the hands of the Sith, and so had Master Vrook and so many other Jedi. To finally die the same way—in the back of her mind, it somehow felt _right_.

She was pulled away from this half-conscious revelation by a disturbance in the Force—and by the sound of footfalls, of someone sprinting up behind her. Only a stride away, the Sith woman looked past Kaevee and hesitated, bringing her saber to guard as several of the assassins came to flank her. But then they were flying back into the darkness like leaves caught in a gale, tumbling into the midst of the bloodbath that still raged with the laigreks. The red blade vanished with a hiss.

Freed of the Force grip, Kaevee began to stir, favoring her aching joints until she was grabbed by the collar and yanked onto her feet. Her rescuer was a man, Human or Near-Human, but the poor lighting and the shock of still being alive made it difficult for Kaevee to make out his features, or even to pay much attention to him at all. She swayed until he put both hands on her shoulders and snapped, "_Hey_, you all right? I said, you all right? We need to get out of here!"

Behind her, Kaevee heard the Sith woman's lightsaber reignite, followed by the agonizing sounds of more of her pets dying. Staring at the indistinct face before her, she managed to say, "Who are you?"

He gave her a shake. "What do you mean, _who am I?_ I'm the guy who's rescuing you! Now come on, _run!_" Without another word he took off back down the corridor, but Kaevee bent over, spending a precious second in the hopes of retrieving her ruined weapon. Though the floor was splattered with blood and cleaved chunks of the laigreks were everywhere, she managed to find one piece of the lightsaber before her nerve ran out and she bolted after her mysterious new ally.

To her surprise, the man led her with uncanny certainty through the half-destroyed maze of the sublevel, avoiding dead ends created by collapsed sections of ceiling or heavy doors sealed permanently by damage or loss of power. He deftly avoided smaller hindrances as well, steering around piles of fallen masonry or stepping between smaller chunks that could easily give someone a twisted ankle. Either he also knew the Enclave sublevel by heart, or the Force was with him indeed.

Kaevee quickly realized that they were heading toward the southwestern exit. They passed only a few laigreks on the way; perhaps the Sith had already slaughtered the majority of them.

The Jedi—he _had_ to be a Jedi, Kaevee realized with a surge of raw joy—led the way up the long shaft of a stairwell to the exit. Several strides outside he stopped, allowing her to join him under a glimmering night sky. Both of Dantooine's moons shone at their full intensity, penetrating the night with a stark white glow. Before them stretched the broken, vine-choked ruins of a courtyard, pocked by decade-old craters.

Breathing deeply, the Jedi pointed past the courtyard to the Janta plains beyond. "She's gaining on us," he said. "I'll hold her here. The ship's parked just over the hills. Get on board and tell the droid to bring it over."

As Kaevee stared at the gentle humps of the hills as though they were mountains, it occurred to her that they were going to flee the Enclave, not defend it, and a dozen nameless, conflicting emotions welled up inside her. Her first thought was to blurt out, _Are you serious?_ Studying her new companion by the light of the moons, however, she was puzzled by his appearance: rather than the traditional robes, he wore a plain shirt and pants, a spacer's boots, and a battered, heavy-looking jacket. But the face beneath his tousled hair was earnest, collected, a picture of transcendent certainty—he _was_ a Jedi.

The only other Jedi.

Annoyance flickered across his face. "I wasn't sent here to watch you get yourself killed," he snapped. "Get going, _now_."

In unison they glanced back to the doorway, where a threatening red glow was beginning to spill up the passage.

Embarrassed and grateful, Kaevee managed to say, "Please don't leave me alone," and ran.

Atton watched the girl race across the ruined courtyard, but only for a second. His thoughts were racing, as usual. _Hope she makes it. Hope _I_ make it. Wish I had a thermal det. Play the plus-two card, the totals are five-ten…_

He faced the doorway right as Visas Marr stepped through it, holding her weapon loosely, its glowing blade angled toward the ground. She cocked her head and spoke, her words dripping with contempt. "Meetra says she _misses_ you."

Atton shrugged, letting the Force flow into him, and the monologue of the pazaak game in his head grew quieter. Putting a hand into his jacket pocket, he shrugged and said, "Yeah, I know."

The Miraluka took a step closer and her voice returned to its usual smooth monotony. "She hopes you will return to her willingly."

"She wants me so bad, she'll have to settle for my carcass."

One side of Visas' mouth peeled back in some vicious parody of a smile. "That is what I hoped you would say."

There was a flash of movement as Atton drew his lightsaber; Visas moved in response, easing herself into a guard stance, and Atton copied her pose. Then there was a long moment of stillness as they paid silent reverence to the impending business of killing each other.

Atton's eyes traveled the length of the alien weapon in his hands. He felt stupid for having it, much as he had six years before, when he had cobbled it back together from the wreckage of the Jedi Kavar's lightsaber. The blade itself spoke of his less than masterful craftsmanship. Wreathed in deep blue, its white core flickered and pulsed as though it was barely able to contain itself, and even its hum was an unsteady, electric growl.

Second-hand power cell, the emitter circuits misaligned, a scratch on the focusing lens… _Good enough_ was what he had called it. He may have felt stupid, but merely stupid was still he'd felt in six years.

He extended his Force perception, brushing against the contours and edges of the irregular terrain around him, taking in the Miraluka's menacing aura. For a brief interval his hearing sharpened, telling of stamping feet coming up the stairs—more lackeys—and he wished again for a thermal detonator. Also, he sensed, there were a couple of critters, not laigreks, though, lurking somewhere just out of sight…

And also, there was the _girl_ just a stone's throw behind him, crouched down on the incline of one of the shallower craters, watching as he bravely risked his life for her. He reached out to her and prodded her mind with the Force. For good measure, he thought, _RUN, YOU IDIOT,_ as loud as he could.

Telepathic communication wasn't his forte, so he could only hope that the idiot in question understood him well enough to break out of whatever stupidity had given her pause. There was no way to be sure, though, because Visas Marr had taken a little leap and closed the distance between them, and he had to switch his focus from what the girl was doing to not getting cut to pieces.

Kaevee's vision was swimming with a dark outline by the time she was done dragging herself to the top of the last hill. At the bottom of its incline rested the squat, rounded E-shaped hull of a freighter of some kind, its engines idling and glowing a faint yellow. She half-ran, half-fell down the hill and collapsed onto the edge of a boarding ramp that she found extended from the ship's starboard cleft.

A bizarre-looking probe droid regarded her from the top of the ramp. It was headless and legless, with three long, spidery arms sprouting from the top of a drum-shaped body. Suspended in midair by a repulsorlift which gave off a noisy, undulating hum, its four red photoreceptors flickered spastically as it whistled, buzzed, and beeped down at Kaevee.

The Padawan understood a smattering of Droidspeak, and the inflection made her think the utterance was a question, but she could not hold her thoughts together enough to translate it in her head. As she stared back at the machine, wheezing and gasping like a garfish, it repeated itself, louder and a bit slower than before.

Recovering her breath, Kaevee started to ask, "Are you with…" Then, remembering that she didn't know the Jedi's name, she started over. "He's in trouble! Says to bring the ship…" But even as she said this, the droid zipped out of sight. Following the sound of its repulsorlift, Kaevee stumbled up into the ship and toward the cockpit. While passing through the main hold, she hesitated and glanced back, thinking she had heard footsteps, but there was apparently no one to greet her but the droid.

In the cockpit she found the machine hovering over the pilot's seat, its three manipulators clumsily hammering at the main console as a rising whine sounded from the engines at the back of the ship. Seeing the droid take hold of the steering yoke, Kaevee scrambled into the empty co-pilot's seat. Not a second later the ship lurched up from the ground, its nose dipping slightly, and began to wobble its way noisily over the hills.

Atton didn't expect that he could kill Visas in the few minutes it would take to either get killed himself or escape once the _Hawk_ arrived, but he gave it his best shot. First he tried one of his preferred methods for dealing with arrogant Force users, letting the Sith expend her energy in going on the offensive, waiting for a split-second vulnerability to appear. As she came at him again and again, he fell back, parried, or sidestepped, watching his own footwork on the uneven terrain. But the Miraluka kept her balance as well, not overcommitting to a single strike.

Then three of her goons emerged from the Enclave and joined the fight. As they tried to hem him in from four directions, he caught Visas' saber and one assassin's blade in a lock, slid aside from the second one's stab, and kicked the third, sending him sprawling down into a crater. He whirled back and forth to block the slashes of the other two. Visas held back for a few seconds, which Atton found puzzling until a collection of small ferrocrete chunks rose from the ground and launched themselves at his head.

One of them gently—so to speak—grazed his cheek as he deftly twisted away. He bit his lip, savoring the pain as he had been trained to, and let it carry him deeper into the fight. Crimson saber and cortosis-woven steel came at him again, and his hungry blade met them. The assassin he'd kicked into the crater had almost finished clawing his way out, only to be knocked back down to the bottom by the falling, decapitated corpse of one of his fellows.

A second later, Atton leaned to one side and winced as Visas' blade zipped upward, past his ear in a slice that nearly burned off one side of his skull. He threw the third assassin off his feet with a Force push, then gave the Miraluka his full attention.

For the past few months, Atton had been too busy to get into any real fights against other Force-users—he might have joked that he was getting older and had to be more responsible. Even though his aim here was more to stall than to kill, he figured he might as well cut loose and see if he was as sharp as he had been before getting himself into this mess.

As opposed to the mess that had immediately preceded it.

As he parried a flurry of strikes from Visas' lightsaber, Atton employed an old trick of his and retreated partway into his own head, letting instinct and precognition take over the duel while he stoked the emotional embers that could be ignited into rage. He pulled up a particularly searing and persistent memory: the moment he had first seen Meetra standing in the middle of Trayus Core, her face aglow with bloody light. She'd been smiling at him, but her smile looked stiff and arranged, like that of a corpse.

He had been taught to summon the power of the Force this way, to think of it like some lumbering beast that had to be baited and coaxed and herded around—at first, anyway; Sith put passion first, as the means to gathering strength. Supposedly, after much more training, the Force became more like a tool that one could simply select and use. To Atton, though, this process already _was_ a tool. Manipulating himself and making his mind do what it was supposed to do, that was natural to him. All the philosophy stuff, he could've done without that.

_Just flip the switch, turn the valve, play the plus-eight card. Make your brain work. Feed the fire. Entice the Force, get the power you want…_

Fire ran into his veins, set his brain to a boil, burned his eyes clear. Faster than he could think, he threw himself on Visas, his blows crashing against her guard. The woman fell back at once, sometimes shunting his blue blade aside, other times blocking directly though it rattled her shoulders. He kept up the offense, striking harder, advancing faster, but she kept her balance. Her footwork carried her between rocks and along the edges of craters with eerie precision—grace, even. Though she was a little smaller than Atton and could not equal his natural strength, she was plenty able to use the Force to compensate for that. What's more, she knew his fighting style, was familiar with many of his tricks, and perhaps had also guessed that he was not at the top of his game—just as Atton was beginning to realize the same thing.

Frustrated though he was by his ineffectual offensive, Atton went at it harder and harder, driving his partner-in-swordplay from the courtyard and onto the field beyond. As the high started to peter out, he sensed the two assassins running to catch up with the due. Despite this, he also had a feeling that he should stop, so he did. Still retreating, Visas kept going a few paces, and the upward viper-flick of her red blade flashed through empty air, as opposed to going between his legs.

The close call almost made Atton laugh. Instead he bit down on his amusement, letting out his frustration in another Force blow that roared over the plain like the breath of a hurricane, throwing the schutta back head over heels… but the Force was with her too—or whatever—allowing her to flip in midair and come down in a crouch, landing as lightly as a gwayo bird.

Atton, in contrast, called on the last of his power to take flight like one, soaring twenty meters more or less straight up into the night sky, where he was swallowed by the open boarding hatch of the _Ebon Hawk_ as it rumbled past overhead. Closing down his lightsaber and shutting the hatch with a slap to the control panel, he staggered through the ship and into the cockpit. "Outta my chair," he barked, though Ecksee was already floating away from it.

The girl, seated at the other station, jumped halfway out of her skin at his appearance. "Glad to see you made it, kid," Atton grunted as he sat down and his hands began to fly over the controls. "Just strap yourself in and sit tight."

Then he threw a lever, and the engines _really_ kicked in as he turned the _Hawk_ skyward. The girl sat rigid and fused to her chair, staring with lidless eyes as the starfield over them became the galaxy ahead of them, and Dantooine's moons slid out of sight. Moments later the stars stretched into needle-thin lines, and they leaped into the tunnel of blue fire beyond.

* * *

_Squinting up against the sunglare, Kaevee looked where Shen had pointed. Though she couldn't really see the brith, she could sense it easily enough. "No," she said, restraining a giggle. "Absolutely not."_

_Still leaning against the speeder, Shen regarded her with exaggerated disappointment. "Oh, really? Why not? I thought Jedi weren't supposed to be scared of anything."_

"_I am not scared," she protested seriously._

"_Are too."_

"_Yeah, well how about you? I'll tell it to come down—let's see _you_ try and ride a brith."_

"_Why would I need a brith when I have this thing?" he said as he climbed into the speeder, which actually belonged to his father, like everything else Shen had._

_The girl scoffed, but they smiled at each other as Shen started up the vehicle. "I'll see you around, Kaevee."_

"_Bye."_

7


	2. First Impressions

A moment into the post-jump safety check, Atton remembered that he had just survived a scrape with the Sith, and thus had reaped the benefits he would expect from such an achievement: shortness of breath and a collection of new aches and pains. He also remembered that Ecksee could handle the junk on the computer just fine. "Hey, take over," he said over his shoulder.

The girl faced him, looking startled.

"Not you—sorry." Peeling off the restraints, he left the pilot's seat, allowing the droid to hover into place before the console. "What's your name?"

The girl gazed up at him with a frozen expression of… awe? Dismay? "Kaevee. You saved my life." She timidly offered a hand, then winced as he shook it roughly.

"Don't mention it. I'm Atton. Atton Rand. Welcome aboard the _Ebon Hawk_." Yawning, he rubbed his face where it had been grazed by the rock Visas had thrown. When he found his hand smeared with half-dried blood, he realized why Kaevee was looking at him weird. "Hey, gimme a minute."

With that he headed to the medbay, where he bent down over the sink beside the bed and started washing his face and hands. Out the corner of his eye he saw Kaevee appear in the doorway. "I have so many questions," she said.

Pretending that he couldn't hear her over the sink, Atton put his head under the faucet and soaked his hair.

"How did those Sith find me?" she asked, louder than before.

Atton straightened up and took a towel to his head. "Mmm," he grunted. "Actually, they didn't find you—they were chasing me. They must've figured out I was going to the Enclave."

Kaevee's brow furrowed. "So… you didn't come to _rescue_ me, exactly?"

"No, that's just how it turned out. Having Sith assassins on my tail's nothing new, since—" Atton broke off as he noticed a little red stain on the towel—he was still bleeding, and the cut was starting to sting as well. Grumbling under his breath, he went about the medbay and started flinging open cabinets and containers. They were almost all empty, but there was one small kolto patch left. Peeling it open and pressing it to his face, he gave a little sigh as the pain started to ebb. Miraculous stuff, kolto.

Behind him, the girl, whose way of thanking a daring rescuer apparently didn't involve giving him a minute to himself, took a step into the room. "Okay, so how did _you_ find me, then? No one knows about me. I've been in the Enclave since Darth Malak's attack."

As Atton turned around, combing his damp hair with his fingers, his annoyance with her was suddenly undercut by curiosity. He didn't actually know anything about her. His briefing, if one could call it that, had been scanty at best. "That was eleven years ago," he remarked.

Kaevee nodded slowly, and her eyes slid to the floor. "Yeah."

In the silence that followed, Atton had a good look at her. Her otherwise pale complexion was generously spattered with either freckles, filth, or both. Her ginger hair was a jungle of dirty knots and tangles that spilled halfway to her waist, and she was constantly brushing bangs or rogue twines away from her green eyes. She was thin, approaching scrawny territory, and her ragged, mud-stained Jedi tunic was ill-fitting. Likewise, the equally threadbare cloak hung loosely on her.

Aside from her generally mangy appearance, she had a nervous, frayed sort of manner that came out in little details like the way her hands kept fidgeting, or the wariness of her mouth that made it look like she didn't trust herself to smile. But then again, maybe smiling was just against the Jedi Code. She smelled bad, too—either she hadn't taken a bath in weeks, or a huurton pup had crawled into her hair and died there.

Having taken his look and deduced that Kaevee wasn't much to look at, Atton broke the silence. "What were you doing there all this time?"

The girl met his eyes. "I was just a Padawan when Darth Malak attacked. The Sith killed my Master. Killed everyone. There was no one left but me… so I had to stay, protect what was left of the Enclave until the Jedi returned." A hopeful note came into her voice. "Until someone could complete my training."

"Oh." Atton brought a hand to a bruise on his forearm that he couldn't remember getting—another day, another pain. Something else was bothering him, though. It occurred to him there was something he already knew about this Kaevee, but he hadn't known that he knew it.

She interrupted his thoughts. "So how _did_ you find me? Who sent you?"

"I was sent by…" He trailed off. "Do you hear that?" The "that" in question was a rapid-fire metallic clacking, similar to footsteps but not quite the same. It was a familiar and very unwelcome sound to Atton, most of all aboard the _Ebon Hawk_.

Kaevee turned around and made a funny sound, somewhere between a laugh and a cough, as one of those huge damn bugs crawled into view from the corridor, its bulbous eyes aglow. "It's a laigrek!"

Atton's blaster pistol was in his hand, and he was already lining up a shot. "I can see that!" he snapped. "Would you mind getting out of the way, kid?!"

Still framed in the doorway, the kid gave him a ghastly look and raised her hands. "Hey, put that away! It's all right!"

"It's really _not_ all right! Move!"

"Yes, it is—it's bonded to me through the Force, like the ones at the Enclave! It won't attack!"

As if to prove her point, the laigrek creeped over and nestled up against the back of Kaevee's legs. Mostly hidden, it edged its head out from behind her cloak to glower at its challenger. As if to tempt him even further, it made some low, hideous gurgling sounds. But when Kaevee gave it a sharp look, it fell silent.

Reaching into the Force for a moment, Atton felt something unusual about the bug. Its primitive consciousness was marked somehow, like something new had been imprinted onto it. His aim wavered a bit. "The ones at the Enclave," he echoed. "Were you controlling all those things too?"

"The laigreks are— They _were_ my pets," Kaevee explained, somewhat flustered. "There were only a few at first, so I, uh… I brought more in. And then there were a whole lot more. There were salvagers, thieves trying to steal from the ruins. I needed help to keep them out."

As Atton lowered his blaster, his mind returned to Dantooine six years in the past, when he, Meetra, and the rest of their crew had gone blundering into the Enclave sublevel in search of Vrook Lamar. What fun that had been—not only had the venerable Jedi grouch been elsewhere, but in his stead they had found a small army of laigreks to blast and slash their way through. If this Jedi girl had been behind the laigreks, then why hadn't they found her? She must have been spooked, and hid herself or something. In any case, it was damn lucky for Kaevee that Meetra had never found her, considering how things later turned out.

"I learned Beast Control early on," she continued. "My Master said I had a knack for it."

Atton nodded, still half in the past. He remembered how Meetra had knacks for lots of things… and Beast Control was one of them, oddly enough. But he shook that thought off. "Okay, so that thing's not gonna chew on me when I turn my back? Or when I'm asleep?"

"Of _course_ not."

Ignoring the girl's look, which was half wounded and half indignant, Atton stuffed the blaster back into its holster and said, "All right. But if it craps on the deck, or causes any other kind of trouble, _you're_ cleaning it up."

Kaevee's manner went apologetic in the blink of an eye. "Yes, yes, of course I will."

"Can I get out now?"

The girl and her pet killer insectoid edged out of the doorway, then followed close as Atton headed into the main hold. As he rounded the holotable at the room's center, Ecksee came warbling out from the cockpit. The droid's report on the post-jump check deteriorated into an electronic shriek that even Atton couldn't parse. Nor did it startle him—but the laigrek, snarling fiercely from two feet behind, _did_ startle him, and he spun round, drawing his blaster again. The Force guided him as he aimed, but the Force also knocked his hand upward, and his bolt streaked well over the creature's head and back into the medbay, putting a burning black scar into the wall.

The damn stupid fragging bug kept hissing at him and the droid, but stayed put as it had before. Atton struggled with the blaster in midair a moment until Kaevee released her Force grip on it. "I'm sorry," she said stiffly in the tone that people who weren't sorry always used. "They just needed to be introduced."

Whirring and beeping like a malfunctioning turbo-blender, the droid irately shared what it thought of being introduced to the laigrek.

"Shut up, Ecksee," Atton yelled, "it's all right! It's just a… pet." Watching his surly mechanical sidekick float back toward the cockpit, he explained, "That's X-C88, by the way, but you can just call him Ecksee." Blowing out a breath, he tossed his blaster onto the circular dining table, then collapsed into a chair and put his face in his hands.

Too soon, Kaevee sat down across from him. "Listen, you were going to tell me about your Master."

"Mmng, what?" said Atton as he emerged from his micro-sleep.

"The one who sent you!" she cried. "Your Master! What's the plan? What's going on?"

"My _Master?_" Atton mumbled incredulously. _Just go with it,_ he told himself as he peeled his hands away from his eyes. _Make things simple. Anything to make her shut up._ "She's waiting for us on Belsavis. It's a planet in the Outer Rim."

"But who is she?" The girl glanced down at the blaster between them, and Atton read wariness on her face. _Right, I get it now,_ he realized. _Jedi don't use blasters._

"I think it'd be best if you talked to her in person," he said slowly. "There's a lot she's gonna have to explain to you in any case."

"Oh, come on, you can't even tell me her name? Shouldn't I know what's happening _now_, if we have Malak's assassins following us?"

Atton frowned. "Kid, you're out of touch. Malak's been dead for eleven years."

Kaevee's eyes widened, and her voice dropped almost to a whisper. "Malak's _dead? _That must mean… Is the war over? Did we win?"

"No, the— _We_ didn't win," Atton said, shaking his head. He was getting worried about how he kept fumbling his words, but the girl seemed oblivious. "And it wasn't the Jedi who killed him, it was Darth Revan."

"What? But I thought Revan's the one who was killed by Malak."

_Next you're gonna tell me you thought Revan's a man,_ Atton thought with a sigh. It was about time to finish this conversation. "No, it's… It's complicated. Listen, kid, I'm sorry, but I _just_ got myself almost killed, and I need to get some sleep. I'm sure you do too. We'll talk tomorrow, and…" He stood up and hesitated. Realizing that Kaevee wanted to hear some Jedi-speak, he finished with, "…everything will be revealed soon enough."

The girl hastily got to her feet and sort of raised a hand between them, as though half-heartedly offering to support him in his exhaustion. "You're right, Atton. I'm sorry I was impatient, and I'm sorry about the laigrek." She nodded at her pet, which was sitting by her feet and gazing up meekly like a pittin. "I'll make sure it behaves from now on."

Atton glanced down at the little monster and suppressed a smile as he imagined how much he'd enjoy spacing it. "Thanks… Why don't I get you settled in, then."

As quickly as possible, he showed her the refresher in the back of the medbay, hoping she would take the hint, then brought her to the starboard dormitory. "There's blankets in one of those," he said, pointing to the compartments located under each of the bunks. "Now get some rest, all right?"

"Okay," Kaevee said a bit glumly as the bug started sniffing out the corners and crevices of the room. "But where are we going now? Will we see your Master soon?"

"Right now we're going to Ord Lonesome. We're gonna meet up with someone there and get some supplies. After that, Belsavis. G'nite."

"Atton, wait."

He turned back toward her and slouched against the doorway. "Yeah?"

Her eyes a bit watery, the girl brought her hands together and said, "I have to tell you. Thanks for saving me."

Exhausted though he was, Atton tried to be reassuring by pulling out his trademark cocky smile. "Hey, don't mention it," he said, and left.

* * *

Alone except for the laigrek, Kaevee sat on one of the bunks for a long time, reluctant to sleep in spite of the draining events of the past day. The Jedi's return to Dantooine and the end of her lonely vigil over the ruins had left her practically ecstatic with joy. By the end of her first conversation with Atton Rand, however, the feeling had receded into the background, and her mind was set awhirl with unanswered questions which would not let her rest easily.

When she finally turned off the lights and went to bed, the muffled rumble of the _Ebon Hawk_'s engines pulled at her attention. As the sound went on and on like an endless exhalation, she thought of how the ship was surging through the dizzying currents of hyperspace at mind-boggling speed, and how the only thing between herself and that hostile void of blue light was a few layers of durasteel. The thought made her a little queasy, and she realized that she had only been off Dantooine a couple times in her life, and never for long.

Trying to distract herself, she thought of her pet, which lay on the floor beside her bunk, the sound of its breathing almost imperceptible. Glad to have it with her, she found that she missed the other laigreks and wondered whether this one missed its hive.

Her thoughts drifted about and she tossed and turned on the cot. In the end she slept, but she only knew this because she remembered dreaming.

* * *

As always, she dreamed of Dantooine and of what had happened there.

In the dream she was an adult, but she was as she had been when its events had actually taken place; the Force wasn't with her. Trudging alone across the verdant fields, she periodically looked back over her shoulder. What she saw when she did was the pillars of smoke which marked the Jedi Enclave and the estates scattered around it; tangled and mixing together as they reached skyward, they formed a thunderhead over the horizon.

In reality, days had passed since the attack, and Kaevee was well out of sight of what was now ruins, but in her dream the devastation followed her, reminding her that she wasn't out of danger. Ahead of her, the hazy sky looked innocuous and was just beginning to dim toward purple as the sun set. But at any moment they could be stained red again by falling turbolasers. The uncertain silhouettes that occasionally drifted just beneath the clouds could have been brith, but they could just as easily have been Sith dropships.

As it had on that day, when she had been a girl of twelve, Kaevee's body felt like it weighed a thousand pounds. Unlike then, however, she didn't want to keep going; she wanted to curl up on the grass, close her eyes, and wake up. But she had no choice but to keep going.

Slowly, inevitably, a small homestead came into view. It was preceded by a little ramada where two men sat in the shade, facing the distant country where Kaevee had come from. On seeing her, they got to their feet and went out to meet her in the field. One walked in the lead—grizzled and thickset, he carried a blaster rifle, which he waved at the newcomer when she came to within a stone's throw. "Stop!" he barked. "Who are you?!"

Dirty, shivering, and terrified, the twelve-year-old Kaevee had been only confused about being treated with suspicion. Reliving it, however, her thoughts—muddled though they were by the dream—nursed a tiny, fragile hope that, maybe, just _maybe_ it would go differently this time. Showing the men her hands, she told them her name.

"Kaevee…" The man with the blaster repeated it oddly, as though it was some kind of riddle. The other one was younger, slim and athletic, obviously his son, and the two exchanged a wary glance.

When they said nothing, the girl went on, lowering her arms slowly. "I came from the Enclave. The Sith killed everyone, and I…" Choking for a moment, she gestured behind herself. "I need help. I went to the last house, but nobody answered the door… I think they're gone, or…" Unable to finish the sentence, she shrugged weakly and wiped her bloodshot eyes, withering as the two men stared down at her silently. Something about the father's stare was almost physically painful. He sort of looked like he was in pain, too, or as if he was bracing himself for some awful, unpleasant labor.

Finally he spoke—not to Kaevee, though he didn't take his eyes off her. "Ken, go get my other blaster. Find your sisters and your mother. Get 'em inside and wait for me."

"Dad…"

"_Go._ Get going right now."

The young man backed away a step, offering the girl a secret, sad look before running back toward the house, where he disappeared inside. After waiting a long moment, the father spoke to Kaevee. "You're one of the Jedi. You have to leave."

Tears that Kaevee thought she'd run out of started down her cheeks. "I need someplace to stay…"

"You can't stay here. I'm sorry, but you _can't._"

"The Sith will kill me. I have nothing to eat—"

"The Sith came here because of you Jedi!" the man snapped, his somewhat detached expression beginning to melt into a scowl. "They killed the Wendins. The Sandrals, the Matales, the Folstocks, and a lot of families we didn't know. Everyone's wondering who's next. You were supposed to protect us."

The names had as much force to them as blows. The girl had no idea what to say; maybe she should've argued that _she_ couldn't have protected anyone because the Force wasn't with her. But it had been with the other Jedi, and she started to say, "We tried—"

"Don't argue with me, just get out of here—_now._" The man shook his head nervously, his face suddenly twisted with anguish. His hands stood out against the dark metal of his blaster; they were sweating, and the knuckles were white. "I just want to keep my family safe. I'm warning you, I don't want to shoot a kid. Don't make me—"

Sobbing, Kaevee fell to her knees the same way she had the first time, and every time since. "_Please_ let me stay! I'll do anything! The Sith will kill me—"

The man took a lurching step toward her, his restraint gone. "You'll bring them here and they'll KILL US ALL! IT'S YOUR FAULT THEY'RE HERE! Now GET UP! Get away from here NOW, OR _I'LL_ KILL YOU RIGHT HERE! _RUN!_"

For a second the girl thought she _was_ going to die right there because her legs felt like water, but still she sprang up and ran, back across the fields and toward the ash-choked skyline. A single laser flashed past her and slammed into the dirt some ways ahead, but she couldn't run any faster. And as she went on, streaks of red light cascaded from distant clouds, the earth beneath her thundered, and the fields in every direction began to burn.


	3. Allies

Hugging the void at the edge of Dantooine's orbit, far from any prying eyes, the precisely calculated but ultimately aimless cruise of the scout flyer _Celestus_ resembled the brooding of its owner, Visas Marr. Her borrowed assassins surrounded her, manning the stations on the confined bridge, but though several were close enough to touch with her hand, they were less present to her than the one who had sent her back from the Unknown Regions.

_The Force flows easily between us,_ the Exile had told her. _Find Atton the same way you found me—follow the echoes. Tell him… I miss him. And bring him back to me._

At first, Visas had not seen the need to take her Master's advice to heart, since the _Ebon Hawk_ housed a homing beacon that allowed the stolen freighter to be tracked in its circuitous journey across the Sith Empire. Atton had managed to find and disable the beacon shortly after embarking down the Nagian Corridor, though by that time it had cost him dearly. After emerging back in "known" space shortly after him, Visas had access to the entire shadow network of the Sith Remnant, which had woven a web of spy satellites, probes, scout ships, and informants across the lawless Outer Rim.

Such technological methods had their uses, but they also had their limits. And, true to its name, the Remnant lacked the resources which Revan's front empire had possessed. Reports on sightings of the _Ebon Hawk_ at over a dozen systems had gradually trickled in: Klatooine, Thila, Ord Lonesome, and Rugosa, to name a few. But such packets of data were minimalistic at best, giving little or nothing to indicate whether these locations figured in Atton's plans or were random stops meant to hamper pursuit.

It was then that Visas had turned to the sight of her people, which was so rare in the galaxy then. In the course of their life as a species, the Miraluka had discarded carnal vision and learned to perceive their surroundings through the pure lens of the Force. But with great effort, one could extend the limits of this perception in order to see past one's immediate physical surroundings, to home in on a place or person, no matter how remote, with the same accuracy as a beacon. And to the strong and the willing, this was only one aspect of its use; to them there also belonged the potential to pierce the veils of time as well as space, to listen and to hear the disturbances created by events of significance—and to follow the echoes.

Visas had paused for a time at Trayus Academy, where the dark side was strong, and there she delved into the Force, listening to the echoes caused by Atton's betrayal, and trying to follow them from Dromund Kaas to the present, to where he was, and ultimately to where he was _going_ to be. It was no easy task, to peer into the endlessly interlaced webs of causality and pick out the path of a single being, distinguishing it from so many like it; and the galaxy had an abundance of spirits like Atton, creatures dominated by aimless hunger and banal cunning. Yet Visas' farsight had shown her the ruins of Dantooine with unmistakable clarity; she had heard the chatter of its insectoid guardians, felt moonlight on her skin.

So she had gone to Dantooine, taking with her a small party of assassins over the protests of the academy's irascible Headmaster. Finally they crossed blades, and Atton slipped away, having apparently found the one he had been searching for in the ruins.

Months before, Atton's betrayal of the Sith had been something of a surprise, but to come so close to killing him and then to fail was as confounding as it was humiliating, never mind that he hadn't dealt her so much as a single wound. On Trayus Academy they had trained together, and on dozens of worlds they had fought side by side, and yet she had still underestimated him, as their Master had. That was his subtle strength, to play the fool, always hiding what he was truly capable of.

And now he was gone, lost somewhere in the stars. Far from being silenced, the echoes cast by his actions were still rippling outwards. Visas could hear them still when she stopped to listen, but she dreaded to wonder how long it would be until she could hear them strongly enough to follow directly back to their source again. Even supposing she returned to Malachor to make the attempt, she knew all too well that experiences of such perfect clarity were uncommon, and she could not conjure them simply by the force of her own will.

On a similar note, there were also things in the Force which she could not dispel, lights—and absences of light—that she could not help but see, and the aura of Meetra Surik was the most prominent of them. Six years ago, Visas had sensed the Exile for the first time from across the galaxy as something great and terrible and perplexing, a presence impossible to ignore even as it carried little in common with that of a living thing. The feeling now was much as it had been back then, except more familiar, deeper, that of a Master; fourteen thousand light-years away, yet close enough to touch Visas' thoughts if she wanted to.

And like Visas' previous Master, the Exile was always, unceasingly, simply _there_. Waiting.

When the Miraluka had her fill of ruminating, she turned to the assassin tending the communications console, whose name was Leofel. Though he shared the same rank with his fellows, he was slightly less taciturn than they, and so had naturally fallen into the role of second-in-command for the duration of this expedition.

"Contact Trayus Academy," ordered Visas. "I must speak again with the Headmaster."

While the transceiver was booting up, Leofel spoke with the dispassion which befitted his profession, his voice filtered by the vocoder of his mask into an electrically-tinged, almost insectile hiss. "He will be most displeased to hear from us, m'lady."

"I'm sure he will."

* * *

From the very beginning of his tenure at Trayus Academy, Thoriel Silbus had most ardently desired to have a place to conduct his work that was uniquely remote and forbidding. It was not simply that he required quiet and solitude; his surroundings also needed to convey some sense of his grandeur to the lesser minds of which the galaxy had no short supply. None of his prior abodes had really been suited to this purpose.

Coming attached as it did to the title of Headmaster, then, the acquisition of Trayus Core was a long overdue prize, hard won by a lifetime of patience and placation. Accessible only by a few narrow bridges leading from the far walls of the cavernous chamber, the Core was a rounded stone platform decorated only by the circle of bloody light at its elevated center and by the claw-shaped megaliths that reached up around it. The air was cold and still, and the only illumination other than the floor came from a sort of luminescent green fog far, far above in the darkness that surrounded the platform. That darkness felt almost cosmic in its expanse, particularly since the pillar which supported the platform utterly disappeared down into it.

That was a nice touch, and it well illustrated the abyss of knowledge of the ancient Sith, the magnificent and grotesque secrets of which Lord Silbus was the supreme keeper and guardian. Two sectors away, multifariously-populated Ord Radama was where the fleet commanders conferred and commiserated with one another, while Malachor V was a disfigured wasteland of a planet, unpopulated and unknown to the Republic except as an historical footnote, albeit a footnote of the most ominous sort. Yet in truth the latter world was the heart which sustained the body of the Sith Remnant, and its center of gravity was the Headmaster himself, who deserved, accordingly, to sit in Trayus Core.

And sit there he did just outside the glowing center of the Core, his wiry frame perched on a wiry metal chair before a simple fold-out desk. Spread across it were just a few of his precious books and holocrons, along with his datapads and a few other technological necessities. Any lesser being who was familiar with Nautolans would have thought him in ill health; his skin had long ago lost the richness of hue which was so vainly prized by his people, and little green remained in its cadaverous gray. His bulbous eyes, though, were as black as they had ever been as he pored over the monolithic tome of Fulminius Graush which lay open before him on a little stand.

The Headmaster's mind, of course, was the sovereign, deciphering the Kittâtic symbols as his eyes read them. Without ceasing or hesitating, his left hand copied them carefully onto the face of a datapad with a digital stylus, while his right hand typed them in Basic onto a second datapad. He was lost in a sublime ecstasy as he effortlessly crossed the ocean of text, knowing that he was the first and only man in a thousand years to comprehend and to mediate Graush's alchemic formulae to the Sith, and that as long as blood pumped through his hearts, he would remain the only one.

Another being's presence in the Force made the mildest touch against the edge of his consciousness. A spasm contorted his left cheek, and his spidery, bony hands froze. Seconds passed as his hearing rudely made itself known again, permitting the intrusion of the sound of footsteps echoing from one of the stone bridges behind him. Whoever was the source, they were coming quickly.

Far too quickly for the Headmaster, who was determined to spite the decay that now gnawed at the solemn strength of his concentration. Gritting his teeth, he recaptured his eyes and hands and made them to continue their work. With reluctance, he split his attention and crept into the Force, glowering at the intruder with his mind's eye, which was the only eye that really counted. He knew the man at once, a shaven-headed Human named Gorbus. Neither an old man nor a young one, he was celebrated by his fellow Sith Marauders for his skill with a blade and other such pittances. Despite the inherent crudity of his profession, he had a craving to be useful even in the most irrelevant of situations, and so he was one of the few permitted to interrupt the Headmaster of Trayus Academy. It was better than having one of Silbus' fellow Lords do it; they all talked too much.

Observing proper decorum, Gorbus stopped and knelt in the center of the eye of Trayus Core, waiting to be acknowledged. The Headmaster continued his work in silence for a few minutes more, unable to help taking just a little enjoyment in observing the Marauder's slowly mounting discomfort. Too soon, however, Silbus' awareness of his own physicality rose up within him, an unwelcome process consisting primarily in the resurgence of numerous petty irritations—an acute soreness in his neck and shoulders, aches in his wrists and knuckles, random twinges in his spine, and so on.

The most agitating, however, were the exquisite and unpredictable pains that shot up and down the fourteen olfactory tendrils which dangled from the back of his head. Nautolans used these to read the emotions of other beings, but the power of the dark side was not easily supported by such carnal contrivances. To Silbus, that was just as well, for weak minds were perfectly transparent to a master of the Force such as himself, and the notion that he should be particularly concerned with such transient and trivial things as the _feelings_ of his inferiors was at best amusing and at worst preposterous.

When he had squeezed the last drop of productivity from the soured moment, he spoke. "What is it, Gorbus?"

"Headmaster, there is a priority transmission—"

"Yes, yes, yes…"

"—from Visas Marr."

A growl festered in Silbus' throat. "She is waiting now?"

"Yes, my lord. The transmission room is standing by."

Laying down the stylus, the Headmaster slid his chair back and stood up. "This bodes ill," he mused, more or less to himself. "Had she succeeded in her errand, she would not bother to keep me appraised of it. Insolent, ungrateful…" Impelled by a sudden energy, he spun about, one bony finger decisively raised. "Come, Gorbus. I am certain Marr has grave news for me, and I myself shall have grave news for _her._"

* * *

"Really, Marr, this is absurd. Do you mean to tell me that, even with the help of my assassins, this drunken boor outfought and escaped you?" As he pontificated this, Lord Silbus could not help but shake his head in disgust, though he knew that the gesture would be lost on his antagonist. She could not see holograms, since her species lacked eyes and relied on the Force to see and navigate the physical world. And so the life-sized hologrammatic projection of Visas Marr stood placid and immutable, its blue glow the strongest source of light in the spartan, black-metaled transmission room.

"Atton did not best me; he only evaded me. Perhaps he was trained too well." The Miraluka had no heat in her voice, but the barb at the end of her retort was obvious.

"Hardly," the Headmaster sniffed. "I knew from the beginning that that brute would never become a true Sith. To your credit, you were the only one in whom I saw any real potential—but look what has become of that now."

Marr absorbed the truth and pressed on without addressing or denying it—as always. "I am uncertain as to Atton's plans, but he found a lost Jedi on Dantooine. He is gathering allies, and if they increase in numbers, they may divide their forces. I must be able to do the same."

"Lost Jedi? So he has _one_ companion, and one starship between them. I dare say the _forces_ you stole from my academy should be enough to deal with this problem."

"Trayus Academy is not _yours_, Lord Silbus."

"It _is_, for all intents and purposes. I am responsible for its integrity, its teaching, its students. Need I remind you that the Exile _personally_ entrusted it to me?"

"Until her return, _Headmaster_," retorted Marr icily. "It belongs to her, and what belongs to her belongs to the Empress."

"I respectfully urge you to consider the fact that that neither of them is here."

"They will be soon."

"Three months is not _soon,_" fumed the Headmaster, resisting the urge to grind his teeth.

Visas Marr's image seemed almost to freeze, allowing an ugly moment to pass marked only by the wavering hum of the holoprojector. Had she reconsidered her position? Would she at last bow out and go finish her bumbling errands on her own?

At last she spoke again. Her voice was as smooth as ever, but with an added layer that mimicked innocent curiosity. "Tell me, Lord Silbus… Do you think your place will be so secure when those three months have gone?"

It dawned on Silbus then that he had been responding to the Miraluka's insolence as foolishly as a whip-smelt snapped at bait. After taking a deep breath to buy a few seconds, he adopted a tone of immutable courtesy. It was about time to end this annoying exchange. "If reinforcements are what you need, Marr, then I can place you in contact with Admiral Varko. I'm sure he would be happy to supply you with whatever you require."

That was a lie, of course. It was _technically_ true since Marr, like any highly-placed Sith, had _de facto_ authority to take command over any Sith military forces she might happen to desire, provided they were not taken by someone higher than herself. But even though the military's reconstruction had finally commenced with the end of the civil war, the Remnant still had barely enough ships to keep its borders and major hyperlanes secure. Besides, even supposing Varko—or any of his hapless peers, for that matter—had any ships to spare, the movement of Sith forces outside of their modest territory would undoubtedly be noticed by the Republic, or other unwelcome eyes. And to be fair to Marr, she had no taste for military matters and preferred to accomplish her goals using subtler tools.

There was another pointed pause before she said, "I will remember your _assistance_, Headmaster." With that, the hologram faded.

For a long moment Silbus lingered in the dark before the holoprojector, considering his lot in life, and the joys and burdens attendant upon it. There was no greater station than to be keeper of the loftiest of secrets, but at times such as these, he almost—_almost_—doubted himself.

He loathed the academy's transmission room, as he loathed anything that tore him away from his work, though typical diversions weren't as troubling as this business with Marr and Rand. For some time, laconic messages from the Exile had been sporadically coming in to keep him apprised of developments in the Unknown Regions. These dispatches were all beamed down the Nagian Corridor via an exotic hyperwave signal, one powerful enough to break through the tangle of cosmological disturbances which normally hampered communications between the Unknown Regions and the rest of the galaxy. The last one had arrived some months ago, four or perhaps six…

Or had it come just under a year ago? Silbus could not quite remember, but in any case it had brought news that the Empire was stabilized at last, with Darth Revan confirmed as Empress, and given him a projected date for the arrival of the first invasion fleets. For reasons both practical and symbolic, Malachor V was to serve as their staging ground in known space.

The importance of this information to Silbus was somewhat exaggerated; ostensibly he was supposed to prepare things for the fleets' arrival, but for all practical purposes there was nothing really to be done, as long as the Sith Remnant remained secure from any external threats. And with Admiral Varko and his ilk patrolling the borders and the Republic content to leave them to—as they saw it—deteriorate in isolation, that was a non-issue.

There was, of course, the more recent nuisance of Atton Rand, but luckily he was Marr's problem. And truthfully, in spite of the Miraluka's mishandling of the situation thus far, Silbus had no confidence that the Exile's perfidious paramour was in any real danger of threatening the plans of the Sith; his fool's luck would run out soon enough.

As the Headmaster cogitated on this, Gorbus drifted over from the transmission controls in the far corner of the room. "My lord, she mentioned a Jedi," he said with obvious interest.

Turning to regard him, Silbus felt a fresh wave of pain splash down his tendrils, which stirred fretfully; he reformed his reflexive wince into a sneer. "She is spouting nonsense as usual."

"Surely she would not lie about such a thing."

"No; she exaggerates. The light of the Jedi has been extinguished from the galaxy."

Together they moved out into the rock-hewn corridors of Trayus Academy. With a trace of glumness, the Human asked, "Then there are none left to destroy—none at all?"

"_True_ Jedi? Knights and Masters? The last of them fell by the Exile's blade years ago. This one on Dantooine could only be some half-trained pup. No doubt a few of them are left wandering the galaxy, but that is all…" As they walked along, the Headmaster looked askance at Gorbus; the Human was one to wear his thoughts on his sleeve, so there was no need even to use the Force to probe them. Pointedly, Silbus added, "And you would do well to put this matter out of your mind. Despite what you may have been told, it is not by fighting Jedi that we advance in the dark side's power; we Sith were always meant to outlive our traditional enemies, and we should be grateful that the Force is at last free of their perversion."

"Yes, my lord." For whatever it was worth, Gorbus was _just_ smart enough to not argue the point. Far too many of his fellow Sith thought the same way he did. Trained in the quiet years since Meetra Surik's ascent and the end of the Purge, their thinking had been infected by an obsession with the Jedi; with ill-founded reverence they looked back on the great wars of the past, Revan's and Exar Kun's in particular, and envied the Sith of those generations for having had the _honor_ or the _glory_ of facing the warriors of the light in battle. Born as it were into the aftermath of the Sith Order's victory, they took that victory for granted and grew restless in the midst of their training and studies. The patience that was counseled by Silbus and the other few among the Sith Lords who saw things clearly went largely unheeded.

"Leave me, Gorbus. I must return to my work."

As the Headmaster watched him wander off down some pitiless stone corridor, he hoped against hope that the Human would find _something_ productive to do with his time, even if it was just to return to the monotony of sparring sessions with his peers. All these swordsmen and assassins and minions, dashing and stumbling about, waving their lightsabers like younglings with glowrods. Although there could be no Sith Order without them, they had to be kept on tight leashes.

The thought of his beloved project quickly made Silbus forget about Gorbus, and he headed back toward Trayus Core, the fingers of his left hand flexing, hungry to hold a stylus again. But even as he went, the memory of what had originally pulled him away from his work followed close, pestering him like a swarm of blister fleas.

_Tell me_, Marr had said oh-so-coyly, _do you think your place will be so secure when those three months have gone?_

The Headmaster was neither surprised by nor deaf to the veiled threat. That was just like the Miraluka, mindlessly appealing to authority in lieu of ability. True enough, she would undoubtedly point a finger at Silbus if Rand managed to escape her for good. But Marr's mission was her responsibility and hers alone, and although their Master had a few idiosyncrasies—such as her eschewing of the title of Darth—Surik was about as pure a Dark Lord as they came, and not one to be moved by excuses. If Marr failed, it would be on her head while he, absorbed in his duties, remained in the clear.

Thoriel Silbus was nothing if not a survivalist. At the height of the shadow war against the Jedi six years prior, he had been serving under two Masters when one of them, the Lord of Hunger, unexpectedly decided to pluck him from his comfortable and productive life at Trayus Academy. For some months he was confined to his Master's flagship as it stalked the far edges of civilized space, but the need for his presence was never explained to him. The Lord of Hunger, he understood, explained nothing to anyone.

It was over Telos IV that the Nautolan's unwilling sojourn aboard the _Ravager_ had come at last to a most merciful end. As the Exile, the treacherous Visas Marr, and their Mandalorian allies were carving and blasting their way through the troopers and Dark Jedi guarding his Master, Silbus had excused himself, transferring via shuttlecraft to one of the accompanying cruisers. A few judicious words to its captain had then led to its being one of the only capital ships to escape that battle.

Over the next few weeks, the Sith were scattered and regrouped, and Silbus made his way back to his beloved Trayus Academy, only to find that his other Master, Darth Sion, was dead as well. Not only that, but during his absence he had acquired and lost another Master in the form of Darth Traya, whose death had come just as suddenly as her return from banishment. And so the title of Dark Lord had gone at last to her final student, the Exile, Meetra Surik.

Privately, Silbus had found this turn of events just a bit grating, particularly the loss of Traya. Unlike all the previous Dark Lords of the Sith he had served, she had been the only one he felt any fondness for; she was the only one who had ever consulted him or shown appreciation for his achievements. The others had all passed over him in silence, willfully ignorant of his brilliance.

There was also the fact that the Exile and her allies had slaughtered dozens of Silbus' colleagues and hundreds of his former students on Dxun, Onderon, Telos, and other worlds. That Visas Marr had gone unpunished for her role in this injustice was particularly annoying.

Silbus, however, knew better than to give voice to his misgivings. Who it was that laid claim to the title of Dark Lord had always mattered little to him, and he had been among the first to swear his undying allegiance to the Exile. The regime change was accompanied by some fracas, as they always were, but Silbus made himself useful by exposing a few of his fellows who were unduly fixated on questions of legitimacy—gross legalists, all of them.

For a time Silbus had regretted drawing attention to himself in such a way, because Surik's first act of repaying his show of loyalty was to task him with training three of her companions in the ways of the Sith. Her reasons for this were quite vague, but Silbus could not refuse her order, loath though he was to carry it out. He was accustomed to teaching entire classes, not training individual apprentices; the rigors of studying and translating the ancient texts demanded singular devotion. Even a lifetime ago, during the dreary purgatory of his secular career at the Trans-Sectorial University of Dagary Minor, he had avoided engaging in tutoring whenever possible. But as it had turned out, Marr took to his lessons well and absorbed them with characteristic docility. It was Rand and the other Human who had made the whole business so grueling and undignified…

Still walking along, the Nautolan shook himself out of his reflections, remembering that he had passed successfully through those trials and labors. Surik had made him Headmaster; the triumph was his at last, and that was all that mattered.


	4. Space Travel

Out between the worlds there was no sunset or sunrise; so just as it hadn't really been night when Kaevee went to bed, it wasn't really morning when she got up. The laigrek was still sound asleep, so she left it in the dormitory and ventured out into the wider ship, trying to shake off her lingering drowsiness.

Kaevee's bedtime irritation with the noise of the engines turned out to have been a foreshadowing; now that the excitement of her escape from Dantooine had quieted down, she realized that she felt unwelcomed by her surroundings. Everything inside the freighter was harsh, dirty-looking metal. Many surfaces—particularly the walls in its corridors, but also the ceilings in almost every room—were riddled with holes where panels and coverings should have been, exposing pipes, jumbled wires, and other delicate-looking devices and components. Tiny indicator lights flickered or flashed, and monitors beeped and chirped at random. The ambient lights were hard, colorless, and glaring. Somewhere nearby she could hear the droid—Ecksee, she reminded herself—hovering about, its repulsorlift sounding as sickly as before.

The Padawan spent a moment wandering about, taking in the troubling ambiance before finding Atton in the main hold. He was milling about in front of a synthesizer built into the wall which made gruesome, congested squelching sounds as it filled two bowls with some kind of colorless stew. He eyed her as he set them down on the dining table. "Sleep well?"

"Not really," Kaevee admitted as they sat down across from each other. "This'll take some getting used to."

Atton grunted and slid a fork across the table, but Kaevee had already started in on the stew, or whatever it was. It was thick, rubbery, and tasteless, but eleven years of scavenging on Dantooine had taught her to not be a picky eater—or a slow one. When she had her bowl empty and licked clean, she looked up to see he had barely touched his own. But he was staring at it with an expression that suggested intense inward concentration.

Kaevee wiped off her fingers and then her mouth on one sleeve of her robe and asked, "My pet'll be hungry. Can it have some?"

When she got back from waking and feeding the laigrek some minutes later, Atton had disappeared from the main hold. Looking up the corridor leading to the cockpit, she spotted him in the pilot's seat, silhouetted against the vortex of hyperspace. Heading that way, she quietly reached out to him in the Force. His thoughts were obscure to her, distant, muffled; most sentients' were. But she sensed the tone of them, and it was what she had seen on his face during their escape from the Enclave: inscrutable, unutterable Jedi calm. He sat quite still, as well, so that she almost thought he was meditating.

"There you are," she said in the doorway. "Can we talk?"

He stirred and pointed with his chin at the co-pilot station. "Later. Right now, have a seat. I need to show you some things."

Kaevee did as she was told and watched as Atton went through a routine hyperspace safety check. He narrated as he went from system to system, panel to panel, switch to switch, pausing between each step to lean over to the co-pilot's console and walk her through the same process. She fumbled her way through it, relying for the most part on his repeated step-by-step instructions. The control panels and screens and instruments seemed to blend together into a sprawling technological morass. One of the screens showed a rotating three-dimensional wireframe of the ship, highlighting different components as they inspected them in order.

She knew that she had studied starship mechanics in the past—every Jedi Initiate had to—but that had been a long time ago, and if she had ever known what plasma phase soils, deflector ducts, or flux converters were, that information was long forgotten. Still, she wasn't about to admit that to a Jedi Knight.

Something of her bewilderment must have shown on her face, though, because when they were done, Atton pulled a face and said, "Yeah, I know it's boring, and this ship is a mess, but it's all we have. You need to know how it works and how to take care of it. So that's what we're doing today."

Kaevee stared glumly at the readout where the wireframe of the ship rotated and spun about randomly. "Didn't you say your Master's on…" She hesitated. "What's the planet again?"

"I'll show you," the pilot said, rising from his chair. Kaevee did the same and joined him as he went to yet another screen on the wall behind them. He rapped his knuckles against it a few times, and it flickered and powered up, forming a map of the galaxy. "Okay, we came from Dantooine up here. Belsavis's down there, but we're going to Ord Lonesome first, and that's over here. We've pretty much got a straight run there once we hit the Triellus."

Kaevee studied the map, her eyes following the route traced by Atton's finger, and almost hung her head. They were going to travel almost the whole length of the explored Outer Rim. "How long will we be in hyperspace?" she dared to ask.

"It'll take four or five standard days to reach Ord Lonesome. Another day or so to get to Belsavis, depending." Seeing the look on her face, he cheerfully added, "Don't worry, kid, I'll keep you busy. We'll be there before you know it."

Kaevee wasn't reassured at all.

* * *

"What's this thing?" the kid asked for the ten millionth time as she held up a thing.

"Hydroshovel," Atton observed with some genuine astonishment. "Dunno what the frag we have one for. Junk it."

The girl dutifully threw it into the plasteel drum in the middle of the room, where it joined its fellow pieces of junk with an awful clang. The garage was a project that Atton had been keeping on the backburner, but he supposed that with Kaevee as well as Ecksee available to help him out, he no longer had any excuses.

The room was a swamp of mechanical refuse—old tools and gadgets, spare parts and components. Many of them were broken or corroded, or else belonged to something else that had long ago been discarded. They were piled on every surface, filled every drawer and cabinet, and spilled from the belly of the gutted swoop bike that lay overturned in the corner. Sorting through it all, picking out what needed to be kept, and organizing what remained was the sort of mind-numbing misery that Atton knew ought to be shared with another person.

"What's this ship called, again?" asked Kaevee. She was sitting on the floor beside the swoop bike, picking through the junk that surrounded it.

"The _Ebon Hawk_," Atton said into a tool cabinet that was taller than himself and stank of burnt oil.

"Where'd you get it?"

"It's a really long story," he drawled, trying to sound even more bored than he was.

"Well, we have time. I need to know what's going on."

_Curiosity killed the gizka,_ he thought.

Ecksee, who was milling about over the work bench, paused what he was doing to turn toward Kaevee and beep-boop at her for a bit.

The girl listened, then looked over at Atton. "It says you don't tell it much, either," she remarked.

"Because he's a droid. You gotta watch what you tell them…" He paused, waiting for Ecksee to interrupt, but he surprisingly didn't. "And my Master can explain everything once you meet her."

"But I want to know how the war's going. Didn't you say Malak's dead and… Revan's back? How did that happen? And what about the Jedi Council? Are any of them still alive?"

"Another sonic screwdriver," Atton muttered as he chucked it into the junk drum. "We've already got thirteen of these."

"Atton, are you _listening_ to me?" Kaevee was on her feet now, her voice focused and hot like a laser.

Atton looked over his shoulder at her and knew that he had some long days ahead of him. He had already tried to mentally prepare himself by breaking out the old running-and-drinking wisecracker persona, and been surprised by how easy it was—he hadn't really used it in years—but already its limits were starting to show themselves. In the past, he'd been able to get used to working and traveling with others, but in a way that was exactly the problem. Just being the pilot and minding his own business was a far cry from actually running the show himself.

Of course, things had been complicated by this girl's idea that Atton was a Jedi Knight—an idea which was so damn funny in its own way that he couldn't even laugh about it. He'd spent the time before breakfast mentally kicking himself for not correcting the her immediately. But he hadn't, and there was nothing to be gained from upsetting her by changing stories now. He'd be able to set her straight later, once they'd gotten to Belsavis.

In the meantime, he needed to keep the con going. The problem was, how do you pass yourself off as a Jedi when you've never been one, and the person you're trying to fool _is_ one? Until Atton could figure that out, he would opt for keeping her busy with chores. And as for her endless questions, it was clear he'd have to throw her a bone from time to time to keep from arousing her suspicions further.

In the cockpit he had also noticed that, true to Jedi tradition, the kid didn't have much respect for the privacy of other people's minds. Not that she'd get anything for her trouble in that arena. Atton knew how to keep the door shut—playing pazaak, mostly. Besides that, Kaevee seemed incredibly obtuse even for a Jedi, which was saying a lot, so he figured he could keep things under wraps as long as he watched his step.

_Totals are fourteen-seven,_ went the monologue in the back of his head._ Play the minus-eight card, totals are six to seven…_

He turned away from the cabinet. "All right, fine—some recent history. First off, the war between the Republic and the Sith never ended officially, but it's been years since they fought a real battle. Once Revan greased Malak and took charge of the Empire again, the war went from bad to worse. It looked like she was gonna move in and finally take the Core Worlds."

As soon as he got going, Kaevee's anger vanished, and she sat down on the swoop bike as she listened.

"Right when that was about to happen, though, she just disappeared—nobody knew why. The Sith being what they are, they started tearing each other to pieces as soon as there wasn't a big shot keeping them all in line. They ended up losing most of what they'd conquered," he noted, satisfaction glimmering briefly in his voice. "Since then, things have quieted down. The Republic's had time to start rebuilding—and the Sith Empire you know? Right now it's called the Remnant. They stopped fighting each other years ago, but they've been pushed back into a corner of the Outer Rim. Even the Hutts own more planets than they do."

"But what happened to the Jedi?"

"The Jedi…" _I'm a Jedi. Right._ He started over. "We lost. Bad. By the time the war started winding down, maybe a hundred Knights and Masters were left. That's when the Sith changed tactics. They started striking from the shadows, using assassins, like the ones we escaped on Dantooine. A few years into that mess, the Council assembled a conclave on Katarr to try and figure out what to do next. Almost everyone who was left showed up, and then the Sith came and wiped them out."

Kaevee clasped her trembling hands in front of herself. Her face was distantly anguished, staring at him but not seeing him—staring _through_ him if anything.

Atton had seen that expression before. He'd worn it a few times himself. "A few of us weren't there when that happened. By now though, my Master and I…" Even though lies was his second language, this one sounded so stupid, he almost winced. "We don't think there's any other Jedi left."

The only sound in the room was the humming and clanking of Ecksee, moving stuff around on the bench as he pretended to work.

"You okay, kid?"

The girl nodded solemnly, and her eyes cleared. "Yeah… That's all a lot to take in, but… it makes sense. I knew something like that had to have happened, since nobody came for me on Dantooine." She pursed her lips for a moment, in thought, then asked, "What did you mean about 'the Sith Empire _I_ know'?"

_She's asking for it._ "Oh. Well, if you want even more bad news, you know how I said Revan disappeared?"

"Yeah…"

"Well, there's another Sith Empire in the Unknown Regions. It was formed by survivors who escaped at the end of the Great Hyperspace War a thousand years ago. They've been rebuilding themselves over there all this time, getting ready to come back and reconquer the galaxy, have their revenge…" He shrugged. "You know, typical Sith stuff. Somehow Revan found out about them just as they were looking into finally launching this invasion, and she went and claimed the throne over there. They're gonna start showing up in a couple of months."

The girl's despondency was wiped away by alarm. "_Months?!_ What are we gonna do?"

Though Atton wondered how much more she wanted to know, he said, "I'll show you," and took her to the main hold. Switching on the holotable, he brought up a map of the galaxy that was more impressive and detailed than the one in the cockpit. A web of curving white lines representing the network of common hyperroutes and major trade corridors filled the space between a million needle-points of light. The latter indicated the star systems that had been explored by the Republic.

Nearly a third of the outer galactic disk was covered by a blue-tinged field. No stars at all were displayed there, since the Unknown Regions had not been charted by the Republic, hence their name. Contrary to that image, however, Atton knew very well that the _Unknown_ Regions were anything but _empty_.

He tapped a few keys on the console, and the projection zeroed in on a single sector which sat on the border between known and unknown space. With gravitas he pointed out one star system, where the planet of storms was waiting for him. "That's our target—eventually. Malachor V."

"I think I've heard of that place," Kaevee murmured uncertainly.

_Who hasn't?_ "The Mandalorian Wars ended there. It's the site of a secret Sith academy, the only one still used by the Remnant—basically their Order's capital. More important, we found out it's supposed to be the staging area for the Sith invasion. There's one main hyperroute linking the Empire with the galaxy we know, and it comes out there." Atton leaned against the holotable and gripped its edge until his fingers started to ache. "What we're gonna do is get in touch with the Republic and convince them to go and destroy that place. It won't stop the invasion, but it'll slow the Sith down. Throw them into confusion for a little while, keep them from taking the galaxy completely by surprise."

Switching off the holotable, he said, "But we're getting ahead of ourselves. First we need to get those supplies at Ord Lonesome so we can keep this bucket from falling apart. After that we'll pick up my Master at Belsavis, and then we can really get underway."

Kaevee frowned in confusion, which was something she did a lot. "Why can't we just go talk to the Republic and warn them now?"

_Because I don't want to go to prison,_ Atton didn't say, keeping his pazaak face on. As he chose his next words, he reminded himself that the best lies always had truth packed in around them—and the more truth, the better. "It's not that simple. We need to get in touch with the right person, and in the right way. We can't just waltz into the Senate Building on Coruscant and expect everyone to listen to us. The Jedi… Besides the fact that we're practically extinct, we aren't automatically trusted anymore, not even in the Republic."

The girl looked at him intently, but something seemed to be clouding her eyes again. "Why would people stop trusting the Jedi? After everything we've done for the galaxy?"

In hindsight, Atton would never be able to pin down what it was about how she said those words that set him off—or maybe it was just that he knew it was a completely serious, honest question—but at that moment his mind nearly broke. The beginnings of a retort began to erupt from some deep fissure in himself—_Why, I'd be just _thrilled_ to explain that to you!_—but he bit down on it before it could leave his mouth. For a deadly split-second his mind's eye blackened as he went back to another decade, another life, when he used to work in places as dark and remote as Trayus Academy, and the things that he used to do there to wide-eyed, innocent little Padawans like Kaevee.

There was a thunderous, silent shriek as his mental shield reasserted itself. _Totals are SEVENTEEN-TWELVE SEVENTEEN-TWELVE SEVENTEEN-TWELVE—_

Blinking, Atton shoved the memories back down. Meanwhile, his audience was simply watching him expectantly; it hadn't shown on his face. _Idiot,_ he told himself. _Lucky she wasn't trying to read your thoughts right then…_ Then he recovered himself completely and said, in a tone suggesting disinterest, "The Jedi have been gone for a while, and people's views have changed. They blame us for not being able to stop the Sith."

For some reason Kaevee had nothing to say to that. She just nodded and looked away, lost in thought again. Atton did his best to hide his gratitude. "Come on, let's get back to work. I can tell you more later." He led the way back to the garage and the girl followed, silent at last.

* * *

They spent hours sorting things out in the garage, but to Kaevee it barely looked any better by the time Atton decided that they had to move on to something else. She came to understand that these chores would take up the bulk of their time over the next few of these bizarre, sunless days of space travel. Atton took her from one section of the _Ebon Hawk_ to the next, explaining in exhaustingly meticulous detail what was wrong with the machinery in front of them and what exact sort of disrepair it had fallen into.

As with the safety check in the cockpit, most of the technical information flew over Kaevee's head, and she was perfectly content with the fact that, as the pilot kept explaining, nothing could really be done except for basic sorting and cleanup until they acquired replacement parts at Ord Lonesome. Sometimes Ecksee was with them and helped out; other times it hovered off on its own uncertain errands.

When they moved from the garage to the engine room, there turned out to be a second droid on the ship: a floating sphere slightly bigger than a man's fist, its surface studded all around with pinhead-sized sensors. It hung in the far corner of the room beside the hyperdrive unit, bobbing up and down slightly. At first sight, Kaevee took it for an ornament of some kind.

"That's the Remote," Atton said simply when asked about it, "or just Remote. He's mostly for helping out with repairs, and he can do slicing in a pinch. Not good for much else."

The little droid humbly agreed in a series of beeps more pleasant than the ones Ecksee tended to use.

Atton ignored the Remote from then on and started talking about the hyperdrive. Half-listening, Kaevee looked from sputtering, whirring exposed machinery to clumps of metallic refuse in the corners and briefly wondered how Atton could have let his own ship fall into such a ruinous state. None of the floors looked like they'd even been swept. Having spent half of her own life in a bombed-out ruin, she wasn't exactly scrupulous about cleanliness herself, but she had expected things to be different on a starship.

The Padawan's curiosity about the state of the galaxy was nowhere close to being sated, but she decided that she could wait before learning anything more; what she had heard in just a few minutes was enough to weigh down her spirit for the rest of the day. As she had said in the garage, she'd known for a long time that something awful must have happened to the Jedi. Even so, it wounded her to hear it confirmed, to know that they had lost the war while she was left on Dantooine for all those years, isolated and powerless.

But Kaevee knew that she hadn't been isolated and powerless, not completely, and contrary to what she'd told Atton, the Jedi hadn't waited eleven years to return to Dantooine. She still had Master Vrook's decapitated lightsaber to prove that.

For the rest of the day she followed Atton around, doing what he said and enduring his technical jargon. At some point they broke for lunch and she fed her laigrek, which had been pacing about in the dormitory, and then it was back to work.

They had dinner late, or so Kaevee judged by the groans in her stomach beforehand, and by the fact that the pilot had no work for her afterwards. When she had eaten, she went to the refresher, then came out to find him in the cockpit, as she had at the beginning of the day. He was in the pilot's chair, leaning back so far that it looked like the seat might break—or maybe it was broken already—and snoring terrifically. The lights were all off, leaving the room draped in the muted blue glow of hyperspace. After staring at him for a moment and wondering why he hadn't gone to the other dormitory, Kaevee shook her head and dragged herself back to her own one, her eyes heavy and limbs aching.

Soon after going to bed, her thoughts drifted to Katarr, the planet Atton had mentioned as the site of the Jedi's last stand, and she found herself trying to imagine what it had looked like. She wanted it to have been a great battle, nothing like Dantooine, something worthy of the Order.

Thinking of those hundred fallen Jedi, she wondered how many of them might have been people she'd known or at least heard of. Surely Grand Master Sunrider had been there, and most of the High Council with her… though she knew that Master Vrook, Master Kavar, and Master Ell couldn't have.

Obviously, Emon hadn't been there. Most likely none of the Jedi Kaevee had known on Dantooine. Then again, there was one Knight, a woman whose name she had forgotten, a friend of that unfortunate Padawan, Juhani. She had disappeared before Malak's attack—gone off on some mission, most likely. At any rate, a few others had been sent off by the Council in those final days… And yes, Bastila Shan had been one of them. She must have survived until Katarr.

Of all the people Kaevee tried to keep alive by remembering them for all those years, there wasn't one like Bastila; even the thought of her own Master didn't make her heart swell with such a fierce little pride. _She's a prodigy,_ Emon had said once, echoing more than a few Masters and Knights. And then, all too early into the war, "Masterless Prodigy" was what they began to somberly call her—though never when she was within earshot.

Everyone had talked about Bastila. Looking back, it was as if they had known even then that she would be the Order's last champion. Though also a Padawan, Bastila had been a good seven or eight years older than Kaevee, and was often away from Dantooine, particularly after the war broke out and her Battle Meditation became known to the Council. Shy as Kaevee had always been, she remembered working up the nerve several times to talk to Bastila when she was around. They would sit together under the century-old blba tree in the nexus of the Enclave's ground level, where they talked about…

It always frustrated Kaevee that she couldn't remember what they'd talked about at all. But the feeling of the conversations had survived, and muted though it was by the passage of time, it was still almost electrifying; Bastila had had a strength and peace about her that was contagious.

Fragmentary and ethereal though it was, that memory gradually eased Kaevee's sorrows and reminded her of the journey ahead. Her sufferings over the past eleven years hadn't been for nothing, and neither had Katarr; when she reached Belsavis, her training in the ways of the Jedi would begin again at last. In time she relaxed, and sleep found her.

* * *

And she found herself returned to the afternoon when everything had ended. Her dreams of that day always carried with them the paradoxical sense of time that had accompanied the experience itself, a breathless, frantic speed that was somehow combined with an agonizing, glacial slowness that yielded an impossible capacity to take in its details in all their misery. There was also a bone-deep familiarity of each event as it happened; she was aware enough of its being a dream to know and to dread whatever was coming next, but however much she tried to struggle, she could no more alter its course than a pebble could turn back a river.

The girl was alone, standing on the crest of a hill on the western edge of the Khoonda plains, where she was trying to coax a lone iriaz into drawing near. The funny, crooked-horned creatures were notoriously skittish, but she was having little trouble with this one—until it inexplicably turned tail and bolted, impelled by a sense of alarm that broke through Kaevee's Force suggestion.

She had little time to be puzzled before an uncanny, almost preternatural silence seemed to sweep over the world. Recognizing a warning in the Force, she instinctively looked north toward the distant Enclave, which sat on the horizon, shining almost bronze in the midday sun. Her right hand nervously took hold of her belt, where her lightsaber should have been. She had left it in her room; she thought she wouldn't need it this close to the Enclave.

And then the turbolasers came—downward slits of brilliant red light, as though something had cut into the sky and now it was bleeding. They reached the ground before Kaevee could blink an eye, and half of the Enclave disappeared behind a billowing cloud of pulverized earth. She stumbled as a gale of crackling thunder drove its way across the plains and popped her ears, but it hadn't even begun to fade when she started running.

A few more salvos came, some hitting the Enclave, but others slamming into the countryside and spreading mantles of flame across the grasslands. Though the sound seemed to shake its way down into the Padawan's brain, she kept running because in the Force she could hear the screams of the Jedi, and Emon was somewhere among them. She needed to get there, to be there with them.

In the corner of her mind where she was aware of the dream, Kaevee tried to steel herself, tried to make herself run faster; she wanted to get to the Enclave this time because she wanted things to go differently. Sometimes there were little aberrations in the dreams, after all. Maybe there could be a big one, once in a while…

The roars of the bombardment finally died down as she made it halfway to the mutilated, scorched edifice, but as they gave way to the boiling growl of starship engines, the girl wavered and trotted to a halt. Two clusters of dropships were flying low toward the Enclave from the left and right, their thick-armored hulls black against the sky.

Kaevee stared, sucking in the torrid air, as the vessels touched down and discharged ranks of Human figures, still tiny in the distance. There were a few squads of regular soldiers, but black robes were in the majority, and their lightsabers burned like lanterns as they passed through the drifts of smoke that veiled the Enclave's courtyards. Other glows appeared in the midst of the haze—azure, emerald, and yellow—and soon it was flickering in eerie silence like a far-off storm cloud. Yet slowly, inescapably, a red stain was overtaking the cloud.

Again her shaking hand went to the emptiness of her belt. The Force wasn't with her.

Past the reiterated terror of her childhood self, Kaevee's heart sank with a disappointment that seemed never to grow old. _I wish I was there, I wish Bastila was there, I wish I could just _see_ Emon before he…_

Finally the girl turned and ran—not quite back the way she had come, but toward the only place she could think of, more to the east. The distant grasslands were burning fast, and ashen winds buffeted her as she lurched toward a rustic brown manor. To the twelve-year-old girl it was a fiber of hope to reach for; to Kaevee, it made her sick with dread.

The droid which normally guarded the Matales' front door was nowhere to be seen, but the front lawn wasn't deserted. Atton was there, standing a little off to the side. Instead of the spacer's garb, he wore full Jedi robes and fixed Kaevee with a look so severe that it drove her to a stop. For a few awful seconds she imploringly stared back at him, feeling naked, but he simply raised an arm and pointed toward the door—where she already had to go anyway.

"Why can't you _help_ me?!" she demanded bitterly. But Atton was like a statue, and she left him behind.

The girl wasn't pounding on the front doors for long before Shen yanked them open. He was holding a blaster in one hand and twisted awkwardly to keep it pointed away as she threw herself into his arms. He took her inside, and as the following minutes passed, Kaevee screamed inside that she was ready to wake up; she'd seen all this enough times. She knew the Sith troopers were going to come, and knew where she would find herself when they'd left.

Where she found herself was the Matale family's garage, curled up beneath one of the swoop bikes. Half the room was on fire, and the air was wobbling and swimming. She smelled ignited fluids and vapors, her own hair crisping, but most of all, flesh burning. At first she was only peripherally aware that the ceiling on the other half of the room had collapsed, but she quickly focused on that, trying to ride out the rest of the dream. The sky didn't look right; it wasn't supposed to be so dark in the middle of the afternoon, and clouds weren't supposed to be those colors…

Inevitably her eyesight leveled. A couple feet in front of her was a large metal object that had fallen from the ceiling, dented and bent and glowing dirty red, sort of like charcoal. Something alive was pinned underneath it. Through the vibrating haze Kaevee saw a head jerking back and forth, two arms flailing and pounding against the metal, trying to dislodge it, and small flames spreading. A tremendous sizzling filled her ears, but it was nothing compared to that shrieking, croaking voice that shouldn't have been Shen's, but was.

Sooner or later, Kaevee always found herself there, huddled under the swoop bike and watching Shen the same way she had when she was twelve. And just like when she was twelve, she found that the Force wasn't with her. All she could do in the dream was move her lips, to try to tell him how much she wanted to lift the debris off him and how sorry she was that she couldn't. She told him over and over and over again until he finally had stopped moving and the smoke started to crush her lungs. And somehow it was just then that she found she could move again, and she dragged herself out from under the swoop bike and to the little door at the back of the garage.


	5. Lossway

When Atton had given in and told Kaevee about what sort of trouble the Republic was currently in, he hadn't really been trying to drive her down into a funk. That was the effect it seemed to have, though, or so he judged from the sullen expression that the conversation froze onto her face. Since it apparently discouraged her from asking more irritating questions, he decided it had just been a lucky shot on his part.

The kid didn't talk much the next day, seeming either despondent or contemplative. When she wasn't helping out with chores, she either wandered the ship aimlessly or else hid in the starboard dormitory. Thankfully, her Jedi navel-gazing didn't appear to distract her _too_ much, and she was also careful to keep her giant bug under control. It poked its ugly little head around in odd places and sometimes got underfoot, but otherwise caused no trouble. So for a little while, Atton was able to enjoy some of the peace and quiet that he deserved.

Peace and quiet or not, though, he made sure to keep the endless rounds of pazaak going in his head, just in case his new companion ever felt like trying to stick her Force sense in there again.

When they were about two days away from Ord Lonesome, Kaevee seemed to have thawed. At any rate, her motormouth came back online. Atton tried to placate her with more trivia about the galactic state of affairs. A lot of it was actually ad-libbed, since he'd been gone for four years, but that wasn't really a problem, since the girl had been out of touch for eleven. But too soon she stopped taking the bait and went back to asking questions about Atton himself and his "Master."

He finally figured out how to deal with this after stonewalling her for a few hours. It was when they were in the communications room, right after he pried open a cabinet-sized access panel to expose the ship's main data cores. "I still don't understand why you can't tell me who your Master even is," the girl complained.

Atton shined a glowrod into the exposed guts of the ship, frowning in response to the corrosion there just as much as the conversation. "You don't need to understand. She'll explain everything. She's the talker and I'm the doer," he said, even though in reality he was both.

Kaevee's dirty look bored into the back of his head. "What does that even _mean?_"

Deciding whether it was time to see if he truly understood the ways of the Jedi, Atton turned on her and snapped, "Didn't _your_ Master ever teach you to focus? Calm yourself and _tend to the task at hand!_ Let the Force flow through you, and trust that everything will be revealed soon enough."

The girl recoiled as though he had slapped her, and for a second he wondered if he had laid it on too thick—but then she straightened and her eyes fell to the floor. Bringing a hand up to compulsively comb at her hair, she mumbled, "You're right. I'm sorry. I should… focus on the task at hand."

Hiding a triumphant smile, Atton stared her down for good measure until she looked like she'd melt. Then he solemnly told her, "Thank you," and they got back to work.

The rest of the trip was smooth. If anything, Kaevee was now paying a little more attention to the chores, and though she still got chatty on occasion, Atton had cracked the code. Whenever she started asking the wrong questions again, or in any way started to annoy him, all he had to do was put on a long, serious face, and say something dreamy and mysterious. It was like a restraining bolt for Padawans—she would nod her head and drop the subject with a sigh, meekly deferring to the wise and heroic Jedi Knight.

Whether or not he would regret it later, being able to so easily turn her into a chastened, cringing little tach whenever he felt like it was the closest he'd come to having fun in a long time, and the rest of the journey to Ord Lonesome was uneventful.

* * *

Kaevee leaned half out of the co-pilot seat, trying to track Atton's hands as they flipped a dozen switches. "All right," he said monotonously, "cutting into sublights in three, two, one." Instruments and monitors began to buzz and squeal, and he grabbed an important-looking lever. As he eased it back, the walls shuddered and Kaevee's stomach hopped toward her throat as the _Ebon Hawk_ shot out of the last currents of hyperspace and the stars showed themselves at last.

Ord Lonesome first appeared as a perfect, solid circle like a hole in space, burning the pale color of wheat in the full light of its primary. Kaevee watched it begin to grow in the viewport with a certain sense of relief. Even if it meant a delay before the rendezvous with a Jedi Master, she looked forward to having some dirt under her feet again. After almost a week of being cooped up in a starship and fiddling with computers, tools, circuits, and wires, she was about ready to lose her mind.

Atton had her run a basic scan of the area, which picked up nothing but Ord Lonesome Control satellites and a handful of passenger liners and small freighters, all of which looked friendly or at least indifferent. The approach vector proffered by the satellites were almost empty of traffic.

"Docking authorities will be hailing us soon," he observed when she was done. "Ord Lonesome's an old Republic outpost with one spaceport and a handful of smaller settlements. Not an exciting place at all, but hopefully we won't be planetside more than a couple hours. The Sith could still be on our tail, so we're not staying put anywhere for long."

The Padawan's heart sank. "Oh."

Seeming not to have heard her, Atton switched over to autopilot and called up a map of the planet. "Cole's gonna meet us in some dustbowl called Lossway."

Cole Terrick, he had explained, was a spacer he'd hired to acquire the supplies they needed for the _Hawk_. Aside from the fact that he was "straightforward" and not affiliated with the Hutts or any other unsavory groups, Atton had offered no details about him.

Kaevee studied Ord Lonesome as they approached, noting the gleaming ice caps at its poles as well as a strange amber sea reaching around from its dark side. Mesmerized by the sight, she barely paid attention when the comm on the main console buzzed, and Atton began conversing with a sleepy, a static-tinged voice identifying itself as OrdLo Control.

As she came back to herself, the voice was saying, "_Honest Face_, you're clear to land in Lossway spaceport three, docking bay eight. Welcome to Ord Lonesome."

Kaevee frowned at Atton as he cut the transmission. "I thought this ship was called the _Ebon Hawk_."

He gave her a wink. "She is. But she's special, so she gets more than one name."

* * *

Atton and Kaevee hadn't yet stepped from the _Ebon Hawk_'s ramp before they were greeted by a spaceport officer, a short, fresh-faced female Human. In addition to her cap and other professional attire, she wore a lying smile that Atton mirrored as she asked perfunctory questions about his business in Lossway. Several times her eyes flitted from the grizzled but handsome freighter captain to the mangy, fidgeting runt hovering at his shoulder, but she evidently judged Kaevee to be nothing more than a transient curiosity. After robbing Atton of a few credits, she hovered away, her purpose in life fulfilled.

Atton gave the girl a sideways glance as they crossed the docking bay. Figuring that five days after meeting her wasn't too soon to broach the subject, he said, "There _are_ some extra clothes in the dorm, y'know."

She looked down at the front of her sullied, fraying robe and tunic as though she hadn't noticed them before. "Oh. Where?"

"Forget it. I'll show you later. You've gotta learn how to blend in a little." He almost added, _And how to work the shower,_ but instead opted to throw in some Jedi-speak. "Be more… mindful."

Following on his heels, Kaevee mumbled an apology. Begrudgingly, he had to give her some credit for not protesting when he'd told her to leave the giant bug on the ship.

Atton had never been to Ordinance/Regional Depot Lonesome, but the name and the look of the place from orbit told him just about everything he needed to know. Whatever the planet's original significance, it had at some point been overshadowed by that of its location at the nexus of a dozen or so hyperroutes leading to other, more promising candidates for colonization. Once the senators had met and done their senating over the matter, the Navy had been sent in to stamp the world with their seal of ownership and at least nominal protection—literally, as the spaceport was shaped like the eight-spoked wheel symbol of the Galactic Senate—"the Cog," as some liked to call it. And then, in case there were any native species to be offended, the Republic had shown what it thought of their fallow, windswept planet in choosing its new name.

As the planet's main settlement, Lossway was no exception to the precedent set by other Ords. Conceived as a semi-existent military outpost first and a place to live second, all of its actual residential and industrial quarters were relegated to haphazardly-arranged patches of cityscape hugging the twenty-meter ferrocrete wall that encircled the spaceport. The spokes of the wheel were formed by rows of docking bays, and it was down the main corridor of one of them that Atton led Kaevee into the disk-shaped concourse at the center.

It was pretty much what you'd expect on an Ord of this size: large but not huge, clean but not _that_ clean, busy but not hectic. Almost all of the beings that they meandered past or skirted around were in groups: freighter crews with pilots and technicians in grimy flight suits, parties of smugglers slapping each other on the back, workers humping packs of equipment, and families or bands of associates from coreward sectors, sticking out like sore thumbs with their prim, crisp attire and wide eyes. Most of the spacer posses were mixed company, Humans with Near-Humans such as normal-sized Mirialans or Iridonians, though Atton spotted a few rail-thin Sorrusians as well. The more alien types kept to their own kind—a band of diminutive Sullustans here, a den of Selonians there.

Some of the spacers were clustered in open lounge areas built around holographic newsfeeds, where they socialized, played cards, or picked each other's pockets. But there was an easy restlessness in everyone's manner, even there. Ord Lonesome was not a place where off-worlders came to stay. The manner of the security guards ambling about made this plain as they eyed people with looks of either jealousy or ambivalence.

Atton went from one lounge area to another, his walk careless and relaxed, looking around without looking like he was looking around, and occasionally sending out little pokes of Force sense, feeling for anyone who might be taking an undue interest in him and his admittedly mismatched companion. The Sith weren't likely to turn up in a place like Ord Lonesome, but there was no place in the galaxy that was entirely trouble-free.

He finally spotted Cole in one of the lounge areas, sitting alone at a small table with his back to a corner. Leaning back so that the front legs of his chair were off the floor, the spacer was sorting the passers-by with his eyes and ignoring the datapad that sat before him. There were ten million Humans like him in every star cluster on the Rim: twenty- or thirty-something freighter jockeys who were hungry for respect and had complicated relationships with the law—where there was any law—inching out across the thin ice that covered over the galaxy's dark underbelly. His clothes were nondescript except for a stylish, expensive-looking red jacket with gray cuffs and shoulder pads. He had short brown hair, prominent sideburns, and—like everybody in the Outer Rim—something to hide.

Atton sat down across from him. "Cole Terrick?"

The man let his chair down. "Atton Rand," he replied, his mouth barely moving. His eyes shifted to Kaevee, who was standing self-consciously beside the table, as there wasn't a free chair nearby. "Who's this? And what's that smell?"

The girl sneered and had a retort on the ready, but Atton silenced her with a wave of his hand. "She's a passenger, none of your business. You got the goods ready for me?"

"Eh, almost."

_Of course,_ Atton thought. _Too much to ask._ "What do you mean, almost?"

"The kolto's still on its way. My guy Bejo, he's had some last-minute complications. It'll be a few days."

"You said you'd have everything by now, Cole."

The spacer put his hands on the table, his fingers interlaced. "No, I said I _might_ have everything by now—assuming things went real smooth, which they didn't. I shouldn't have to tell you that kolto's a pain in the ass. The market price's been tripling every year for the past decade. And besides that, the _bureaucrats_. You ship one kolto patch, you go through enough red tape to hang yourself with. But it'll be here, don't you worry."

"But you have everything else, right?" Atton pressed.

"I know where this is going, and the answer is no. All the goods for all the credits, or none for none. That was the deal."

Kaevee chose that moment to remind them of her presence. "If there's been a delay, why didn't you tell us before making us come all this way?" she demanded.

Cole regarded her with some bemusement. "Because your forward-thinking pilot didn't give me a way to contact him. We just agreed to meet here at this time."

The girl turned to Atton, but he ignored her as he fumbled through his pockets. Extending the conversation would just be a waste of time. "You're right, Cole. A deal's a deal." He pulled out a datacard and slid it across the table, then stood up. "Here, this is our comm sig. The minute all the goods are in, call me. We'll only be a couple parsecs away."

Taking the datacard, Cole looked up at him and smiled sympathetically, with a face that looked like it had been born to smile. "Thanks for understanding."

Atton didn't smile back. "The _minute_ it's all in."

The two men nodded at each other, and Atton headed back across the concourse with the girl practically attached to his hip.

"We wasted our time coming here," she fumed. "Why did you plan it like this? Why not have him call you in the first place?"

Atton had to admit that this wasn't a stupid question, for once. "Because I didn't want to give him our comm signature, or use the hyperwave to call him—not with the Sith on my tail like they've been."

She thought it over for a moment. "Are we just going to Belsavis, then?"

"Damn straight we are. There's no point hanging around here."

He led her on a roundabout path to avoid a band of Devaronians who were carrying on boisterously with a mixed-species crew, drawing the wary eye of a spaceport guard. Briefly reaching out with the Force, he saw how Kaevee's frustration stood out starkly against the dull ambiance of sentience around them. He continued to look around for anyone suspicious without looking like he was looking for anyone suspicious.

"I don't like that guy," Kaevee said. "I don't think we should trust him."

Atton gave her a sharp look, but considered his vocabulary. "You need to learn to see beneath the surface."

That did the trick. "See beneath the surface," she echoed. "Of course I do. You're right."

Keeping his eyes ahead, Atton marveled once again at how easy it was to be a Jedi. He had been thinking you had to spend years in an academy or something…

* * *

Kaevee was still trying to puzzle out what might be beneath Cole Terrick's surface when she felt something stir in the Force. It was a palpable sensation, like a sudden change in temperature, and she knew exactly what it meant. "Atton, something's wrong."

Atton replied in the same tone one might use when discussing the weather. "I know, kid. We're being followed. Stay close and act natural."

They had just come within sight of the door leading back into the docking bays. Nobody stood between them and it. Kaevee stretched out with the Force, and the sense that she had eyes on her intensified. It was not unlike the heat of a spotlight.

Something that was large and difficult to identify blocked the doorway from the other end just as Atton started to walk through it. Kaevee bumped into him from behind and was about to apologize when both of them were shoved back out. As they regained their balance, she felt her heart begin to pound as some huge, horrible _thing_ emerged from the doorway and clamped onto the frame—it was a hand, she realized, plated in reddish gray scales, with four fingers and claws as long as a kath hound's. She watched in dreadful awe as the owner of the hand, the first Trandoshan she'd ever met, gingerly stepped sideways through the opening, partially bending over so as not to hit his head on the doorframe.

"Ex-_cusssse_ me, Hu-_man_… _I'm_ afraid I _could_ not ssss_ee_ you there." The reptilian creature's voice was rasping and ungainly, his pronunciation gratingly slow, and he misemphasized his words. More importantly, as he leered down at the two Humans with a slitted, dozen-daggered smile, Kaevee had a hard time believing his apology was sincere. She mentally coiled up, readying a Force push, but Atton touched her on the shoulder and she reined herself in.

"Hey, no harm done," the pilot agreed, looking not the least bit intimidated. "Would you mind letting us through now?"

The Trandoshan chuckled harshly. It made no sound that _wasn't_ harsh. "Not _yet_, Hu-man. _Fir_ssst we _would_ like to _sss_peak with _you_."

Somebody cleared his throat. In unison, Kaevee and Atton looked over their shoulders to find three stony-faced men standing in a semicircle behind them. Each one wore a blaster pistol in plain view.

As though he hadn't seen them at all, Atton turned back to the Trandoshan. "I'm not open for business right now."

"_We_ sssaw you _land_, Hu-_man._ We _think_ that our _captain_ would rec-ognize _your_ ssstar _ship_."

"Good for him."

"_It_ isss the _Ebon Hawk_, isss _it_ not?"

Kaevee stood like a statue, grateful that the Trandoshan's attention was not on her, and mouthed silently to herself, "I am a Jedi, the Force is with me, I am a Jedi, the Force is with me…"

"Sorry," Atton said with a good-natured laugh, "but I think you've got me mixed up with someone else. My ship's called the _Honest Face_."

"It isssss…?" The Trandoshan took a step closer and bent down to look Atton in the eye. An inquisitive forked tongue flickered out from between his fangs. "Then _we_ are misss-_taken?_"

Kaevee looked the reptilian up and down. An entire collection of blasters and blades hung from his belt. Though he hadn't drawn any of them, he was two heads taller than Atton, and his claws looked like they could go through flesh just as easily as a vibroblade. She thought she could knock him over with the Force easily enough, but could she do it before he got ahold of Atton? And what about the three gunmen behind them?

"Mistakes happen… Listen, would you mind going and docking someplace else? People gotta walk here, you know," said the Jedi who looked like a spacer. Only now was he finally starting to sound a little impatient. Kaevee had no doubt that he was aware of the danger, but she found his performance somewhere between exasperating and nerve-racking. Why was he feigning stupidity with these thugs instead of just dealing with them like a Jedi would?

The Trandoshan continued to stare Atton down, his eyes narrowed to electric-yellow slits.

"Yeah, mistakes happen," interjected the middle of the three gunmen, a brown-skinned Near-Human with shining silver horns protruding from his hairless skull. "All the same, we'd like to give your ship a little inspection. Just to be sure, you understand."

Atton half-turned around and pointed to the Trandoshan with his thumb. "Sorry, what? Are you talking to us? Do you know this guy?"

"You know," said the horned man, "I bet she'd recognize _you_, too. She said that ship's pilot had a big mouth."

Kaevee was about to ask who he was talking about when the Trandoshan snapped, "_I_ am tired of _thisss…_"

"_Excuse_ me," someone said sharply from behind the gunmen. Everyone whirled to find a glowering Cole Terrick standing just a few feet away, one hand in the pocket of his jacket.

"_Who_ are _you?_" snarled the Trandoshan, standing up to his full height so that his glare literally went over everyone else's heads.

"Cole Terrick," the spacer said quickly, then clenched his teeth as though he regretted answering. "I'd like to use this door if you fellas don't mind… Also, that's a customer of mine you're harassing."

"Hey, that's interesting," one of the gunmen noted with false cheer. "Now why don't you go and space yourself."

Cole didn't back down, but Kaevee could sense his tension in the Force; he definitely was not as comfortable in this situation as Atton seemed to be. "No, why don't _you_ go on about your business before things get ugly?" He looked pointedly at the Trandoshan. "I mean, before they get ugli_er_."

"_Hagh!_" The Trandoshan's laugh sounded like a death rattle. "_You_ would be _stu-_pid to _pick_ a fight with _all_ of us, Hu-_man._"

"Yeah, and _you'd_ be stupid to start a fight in the middle of a spaceport. One blaster goes off, you won't get within ten meters of your ship before—"

"Blas-_ters?!_ No, _Hu_-man, for you _I_ think I will _use_ my _teeth_."

"Hang on a minute, Hossk!" the horned man broke in, glancing back and forth between them. "I, uh, I think he's right. This isn't the best time or place… and the others are still uptown." Over Cole's shoulder, Kaevee could see several passersby approaching, only to veer off in other directions after noticing the tense scene. And just over a stone's throw away, two of the spaceport guards stood facing away—for now.

The three gunmen traded a few looks and mumbles. Then one of them, a Human, looked at the spacer and said, "Yeah, I'm with him. You've made your point, _Cole Terrick_. We'll be on our way."

"Yeah, we will," the horned man added, eying Hossk carefully.

The huge reptilian leered at Atton and Kaevee once more, then nodded slowly and lumbered after the three gunmen as they shoved their hands in their pockets and sauntered back into the concourse.

As soon as they were gone, Cole wiped a bead of sweat from his brow and drew closer. "The hell was _that_ all about?"

"Nothing, just some riffraff," Atton replied, scowling at the thugs as they disappeared into the crowd. The bystanders who had shied away from the confrontation reappeared and hurried through the doorway.

"Well…" Cole frowned, obviously suspicious, but his look was overtaken by relief quickly enough. "Well, stay out of trouble," he muttered as he brushed past them.

"Thank you!" Kaevee called after him, but her gratitude was soured when he didn't even look back.

Atton nudged her. "Let's get out of here," he said, and they made for the door.


	6. Signals

_Nowhere is trouble-free._

That's what Atton had reminded himself of on Ord Lonesome. But as the _Ebon Hawk_ burned off the last of the planet's sky and streaked for its mass shadow's edge, he felt like asking the stars if it would've been too much to ask for him to be wrong for once in his life.

Strapped into the co-pilot's seat as usual, Kaevee gripped her armrests and looked about ready to be sick when they made the jump to hyperspace. "You know, we can get you some meds for that sometime," Atton remarked as they undid their restraints.

"That'd be nice." The girl sounded out of breath, but by the time they were done with the post-jump check, she was back to normal and swiveled her chair toward him. "Okay, we're safe. Now who were those people in the spaceport?"

_Play the minus-three card and the totals are seven to seven,_ Atton thought. _Jedi time. Be serious._ "I really don't know. Never seen any of them before."

Kaevee's reply was instant. She was in nosy Jedi interrogator mode, her invisible little Force antennae flicking around—but he was ready for it. "Then how did they know about the _Ebon Hawk?_ And who's the woman they mentioned, the one they said would recognize it?"

That was a good question, Atton had to admit. He'd drawn up a mental list of people who had a history with the ship—those who weren't lucky enough to be dead, or Sith Lords, and so on—but not many of them would have two-bit pistol jockeys working with them or for them, and even fewer were women.

For a change, there was no need to disguise the plain truth. "I'm not sure who it could be. This ship's seen a lot—she's changed hands a lot of times, belonged to a lot of, uh… colorful people. Hired guns and smugglers, mostly. Probably been stolen more times than sold. Whoever they're talking about, I'd bet it's some spice runner who owned the ship twenty years ago—or _says_ she did."

As he said this, Atton's gaze drifted out the viewport, and his mind drifted back in time to the Smuggler's Moon, where some local nobody had strutted out of the shadows and made just such a claim. _We'll see about that,_ he had snarled after Meetra told him where to get off. _Watch yourself… Nar Shaddaa can be a rough place._ Boy, did he know what he was talking about.

"How did you and your Master get ahold of it, then?" asked Kaevee, bringing Atton back to the present.

_It all started six years ago when I was sprung from prison by a half-naked Jedi…_ But before that train of thought could rise to the surface, he said, "That's a long story. The short version is, we needed a ship, and this was the only one available. From a certain point of view you could say we stole it, but my Master said it was the will of the Force."

He mentally frowned. Was that too flimsy and mystical even for a Jedi? Actually no, he realized—Kaevee was nodding, completely unfazed. "Of course it was. You obviously needed it more than some lowlife smuggler did."

At first, Atton was a little surprised how comfortable the girl was with the idea of starship theft. Then again, he was a Jedi, so everything he did had to be right. "Yeah, basically. But as for that—" He caught himself before saying _schutta_. "Whoever it was on Ord Lonesome, if she is some former owner who wants the ship back, I'd hope for her sake she doesn't get her wish. The _Ebon Hawk_'s a flying piece of bad luck."

He immediately realized he'd misstepped, because Kaevee suddenly gave him an alarming look—it was halfway between anger and shock. "Jedi don't believe in _luck_," she said indignantly.

_How about figures of speech_? Realizing it was time to finish the conversation, Atton took a deep breath, swallowed his retort, and smoothed out his expression. "Obviously we don't. But if we _did_, that's what I'd think. Anyway, it doesn't matter now. Tomorrow we'll be at Belsavis, and my Master will explain everything there." He stood up. "For now, though, we've got some work to do. Come on."

As Kaevee followed him out of the cockpit, Atton pushed all his misgivings and frustrations aside, hoping that the work he had in mind would distract himself just as much as it would the girl. _Just one more day of this,_ he told himself. One more day, and then they would wake her up.

* * *

As they collected tools from the garage, Kaevee steeled herself for the return to the familiarly deadening haze of dealing with the ship's electronic insides. They ended up back in the communications room, where Atton explained they'd be working on the hyperwave transceiver, mostly to make certain that it would pick up Cole Terrick's transmission when the last of the supplies had come in. Once again Kaevee was just a little bit puzzled as to how the _Ebon Hawk_ had gotten into the state that it had. Perhaps it was from the previous owner's neglect, and the Jedi had only recently acquired it.

The first step was to remove the same panel over the data cores that they had before, plus a few others. Atton explained what it was all about, but to the Padawan it was just more machinery, and luckily it wasn't she who would be fiddling around in those narrow, delicate spaces; she'd mostly be handing tools to him and keeping them organized.

Atton sat down beside one of the holes he'd made in the wall. As he set up a glowlamp, he sent Kaevee to the back of the ship to get the Remote. But instead of the little droid, she found the only her laigrek in the engine room, peeking into the dark corners. After fondling the creature's head for a moment, she mentally told it to go stay in the dorm for a while; after their stressful stay on Ord Lonesome, she didn't want to aggravate Atton further by risking her pet wandering underfoot.

Remembering what she was supposed to be doing, she double-checked the engine room, then searched the cargo hold and a few corridors. Easing herself into the Force, she tried in vain to sense the runaway droid. Atton's presence and that of the laigrek were clear in her mind's eye, but she found it near-impossible to distinguish one particular machine from the rest of the _Ebon Hawk_; it was all just metal, dead stuff.

Trying the garage, she narrowed her Force sense and found it quickly enough—but then she was able to just see it with her eyes as it hovered about. It was apparently doing nothing and immediately followed her back to the communications room.

Pointing to a data jack on one of the big computers, Atton said, "Hey, plug in over there. Run a diagnostic on everything to do with the hyperwave. Make sure it's Pure Pazaak."

The Remote whistled and did as it was told. As Atton took a micropoint and started poking whatever the component was he had uncovered, Kaevee told him about how she'd had to go looking for the little droid.

"That's the funny thing about droids," he replied. "They're programmable, customizable, safe. They're perfect, they don't make mistakes, they do what they're told, stay where they're supposed to—until they just don't."

The droid tootled something to the effect that it was bored.

"Should've thought of that before you went and got yourself built. But hey, don't worry. We'll have plenty of work for you soon enough." The Remote replied with an excited buzz, but Atton said, "Why don't you save your processing power for vetting the receiver protocols?" After that, it was silent.

"I had trouble sensing it at first," Kaevee remarked.

"Yeah…," the pilot said slowly, knowingly. "You wouldn't expect that, would you? But droids are different from actual people. Almost like trying to sense a hole in the ground—you find it by finding what's _not_ there. And if it doesn't occur you to look for what's not there, it's easy to miss." For a moment he sounded as though he wanted to go on, but he didn't.

Hours passed and they slowly moved about the room, with Kaevee dutifully serving as an extra pair of hands while Atton poked, prodded, scanned, and surveyed system after system, often narrating what he was doing in meticulous, agonizing detail. Kaevee tried to keep up, but inevitably her mind wandered. At some point it struck her as strange, how the pilot knew so much about technology and yet seemed to dislike it so much. He'd called his own ship bad luck, and the droids seemed only to annoy him.

As if to underscore that point, during one of his monologues he said, "Like I told you before, I didn't want to use the hyperwave or anything else like that for meeting up with Cole, in case someone intercepted the transmission and used it to track us… which reminds me, I had Ecksee check the hull for a homing beacon weeks ago. But after what happened back on Ord Lonesome, I think he'll need to again after we reach Belsavis."

And right at that moment, the probe droid breedled in protest as it hovered past the doorway.

"Yes you _will_," Atton hollered after him, "and you're gonna _like_ it!"

The Padawan's thoughts went back to the thugs in the spaceport, who had mentioned a woman who knew of the _Ebon Hawk_, then to the night she had been rescued on Dantooine—and a question that she'd completely forgotten to ask before came rushing back to her. She hesitated, but curiosity got the better of her. "Atton, who is Meetra?"

Atton froze for a second and then continued fiddling with some exposed data cables. "Huh?"

"That Sith woman who attacked us on Dantooine, I heard her say something to you. She mentioned someone named Meetra. She said…" But Kaevee trailed off, not quite remembering.

"Meetra Surik," the pilot said finally, with a trace of weariness in his voice. "She's the one in charge of the Sith Remnant here, their Dark Lord. Right now she's in the Unknown Regions—she went after Revan to join her. Used to be a Jedi Knight, one of those who went to fight in the war with the Mandalorians."

Then it couldn't possibly have been Meetra Surik who the thugs in Lossway were talking about. "How do you know her, then?"

Atton turned and looked askance at Kaevee. "I _used_ to know her, before she turned Sith. I don't know her anymore. And I'd really rather not talk about it." Replacing the panel over the data cables, he picked up a hydrospanner and started screwing it back in—and the tool was definitely whirring louder than it needed to.

Kaevee wasn't satisfied, but she took the hint. Besides, the somberness in Atton's tone was so distinct and bottomless that she felt embarrassed for having asked the question. Besides, as the pilot never tired of saying, his Master would be able to explain everything, and with Belsavis only a day away, she supposed that she really ought to be satisfied with that. As little as she could remember of her own Master, she felt that Emon must have always warned her against impatience. He had always been calm and patient himself, and had never so much as raised his voice with her.

The day went on. Atton talked noticeably less than before, and as Kaevee's mind continued to wander, it dawned on her that her rescuer wasn't like any Jedi she had ever met in her life. Sometimes he was collected, serene, and said things that reminded her of the masters back on Dantooine; but more often than not he was flippant, irritable, or just… _off_, somehow. The best explanation that she could come up with was that he had not been a Jedi for very long. With the Jedi Council destroyed and the Order itself nearly extinct, it wasn't inconceivable that a Master would be desperate enough to take an adult as an apprentice. At any rate, there was no way Atton's training could have begun in childhood if he still had such an erratic personality at… whatever age he was. In fact, it was possible that he was still just a Padawan, too.

Kaevee could see only one flaw in this theory, and that was that Atton was undeniably stronger and more advanced in the Force than herself. She wasn't sure how that could be, if he really hadn't known the Force for more than a few years. But in the end, all she could do was remind herself to be patient.

Atton didn't work her very hard, but by the time their work in the communications room was done, her eyes were heavy and she was pinching herself to stay awake. After dinner she went straight to the dorm, where she tripped over her laigrek, which had been sleeping right behind the door, and fell flat on her face. Too exhausted to be angry, she ignored the creature's frantic, startled croaks, crawled up onto her bunk, and immediately fell asleep.

* * *

In her dream, she was crossing the Taikaha Hills—slowly, carefully, frequently pausing to listen—heading west back toward the Enclave.

Again.

Dusk was coming in. The sky churned thick with fast-moving clouds, and a frantic breeze rustled the calf-high grass. It seemed like the world wanted to rain, but something was holding it back.

Whenever Kaevee looked at the horizon, she thought she could hear the screams of dying Jedi the same way she had first heard them in the Force five years earlier. So she tried not to look at the horizon. She knew this dream, as she knew all of them, and she dreaded what she knew she'd find, so she wrapped herself in the old anxieties, pretending that she was experiencing it all for the first time.

A week ago, she had run away. The Enclave had been attacked again. They had come in and started slaughtering the laigreks, so Kaevee had run. It had all happened so quickly, no less sudden than the turbolasers had been. And she knew that it had to be Sith. Scum like the salvagers had never gotten so deep into the sublevel before. Whenever they tried, the laigreks would swarm them. The Enclave wasn't theirs. And it wasn't the Sith's either, but Kaevee had sensed them coming toward her, felt a dozen of her pets die, two dozen, three dozen, and then she ran. She was older now, and able to fight.

But she had still run away.

And now she was sneaking back again, afraid that the Sith might be there waiting for her, but also knowing that she had no other choice. There was no home for her anywhere else.

"Hey, kid."

Kaevee stopped and looked toward the voice, puzzled but not startled, and in another aberration, Atton was there—not like in the last dream, though; he had his regular spacer's clothes on. He kept on talking in his usual, casual drawl, but the words were distorted and blended into one another. Kaevee stared at him dully, nodding occasionally, too embarrassed to ask him to repeat himself.

Still babbling, the pilot pointed over his shoulder with a thumb. The Padawan's eyes followed the gesture and came to rest on a small group of kinrath. It looked like five or six, but between their shuffling, spidery legs and their wavering, trunk-like bodies, it was hard to tell how many there were. They were clustered close together, scrambling this way and that and croaking shrilly at one another, squabbling over some carrion.

As soon as Kaevee saw them, the hidden sun began to set faster—impossibly fast. _I don't want to look,_ she wanted to say, but she didn't say it, and in any case Atton had already disappeared. As she had so many times before, she approached the kinrath and reached out a hand. By the time they could smell her, the Force had set them at ease, and at her will they shuffled aside.

Mere seconds passed, and Dantooine was plunged into a starless night as Kaevee reached the corpse. But even in that thick darkness, she could still see what she had known she would see, as though the last remnant of the dying sun was lingering in that one spot: a broad-shouldered man, a Human, sprawled on his side. It was hard to say how long the kinrath had been at him before they'd started fighting each other. The bottom half of the man's robes were shredded and almost black with blood. His belly had been gnawed open, and his spilled intestines simmered with insects. But there was no missing the bloodless wound that went clear through his upper torso, starting as it were from his heart and exiting through the left shoulder.

The Padawan trembled and swayed with nausea, and though it was a dream that she had seen too many times to count, the feelings from when it had actually happened still clung fast and smothered her. She had the Force with her, and even through her revulsion it told her silently that she had to stay, had to see again who the body had been. So her eyes traveled up to the head. Was it bald, or just nearly so? It was matted in filth, but Kaevee recognized the face—it was that of an old man, coarse and stiff like granite. His keen gray eyes were both open, staring impassively straight ahead as though his death had been painless.

Kaevee had known Master Vrook's eyes since she was girl, just as she had known the lightsaber hilt that she soon found a few feet away in the mud, highlighted against the black landscape, so it seemed, by a lone sliver of moonlight.


	7. Labors

Although Lord Silbus' field of study had been xenolinguistics—and in large part it still was—he could appreciate good architecture when he saw it. One example of this was how Trayus Detention was located directly above the beast pens, with the floor of each individual cell doubling as a remotely-activated chute leading down into one of the enclosures below. This system provided a simple way to dispose of prisoners as well as to keep the sentient element in the beasts' diets.

The corridor which ran between the doors to each of the pens was all smooth, dark stone and wide enough to drive a hovertank through. The damp air carried more than a few nauseating reeks, but it did not bother Silbus much, as his sense of smell had atrophied years ago. He was therefore about as comfortable as his body allowed him.

His sole companion as he ambled along was an Arkanian named Vosca Tyrnith. A Sith Master and one of the most senior of the Beastkeepers, Tyrnith had been at Trayus Academy just as long as Silbus had. He was complaining mild-manneredly about how offworld shipments of foodstuff for the brutes—living and nonliving—were running late. The Headmaster made a note of it; it was not as if Remnant worlds had run out of criminals and undesirables to supply. Perhaps a few Acolytes needed to be sent on an errand to motivate a Governor or two.

At some point Tyrnith paused and went up to one of the pen doors, where he gazed wistfully through a narrow window at the boma beast that lounged inside. "How is your work coming along, my lord?"

Pleased that he had asked, the Headmaster joined him. He was in a good mood; there had been no interruptions since his handling of Visas Marr the previous week, and so, on a whim, he had left his work for an hour or two to visit the pens. "Every day there is progress," he reported. "I may have it finished in a matter of weeks."

"And then our work can truly begin?"

"Indubitably, my friend."

Together they scrutinized the quadrupedal lizard for a moment. With its cleaving teeth, curving tusks, skewering claws, sweeping trunk-like tail, and sheer muscular bulk, it had an altogether delightful assortment of options as to how it could rend, tear, and devour someone. But in the end, though infused with and bound by the dark side, ultimately it was still a common beast.

The Sith Order had suffered much deprivation and ruin in the civil war that Darth Revan's disappearance precipitated—a testament to her lack of forethought if ever there was one. The library on Korriban ended up being utterly ransacked, leading to the loss of many essential texts and holocrons, and with them went much of the more powerful secrets of the ancient Sith.

Owing to its secrecy and its remote location, Trayus Academy had been spared much of the ravages of infighting. Yet the knowledge stored there suffered from neglect; since Revan had first claimed it, hardly anyone bothered to work on translating the many texts there into contemporary languages. Entire swathes of its library were locked away under the Old Tongue, High Sith, Massassese, and other dead languages, each one of which came in as many as a dozen dialectics and variants. The loss of Korriban, with its accessible and up-to-date materials, had been a catastrophic setback in almost every discipline and sphere of knowledge.

Only a handful of Sith Lords, Silbus most prominent among them, had taken up the burden of restoring what was lost. While so many of his peers and students were galivanting about the galaxy, chasing down the stragglers of a Jedi Order which had already been destroyed, Silbus had remained hard at work on Malachor, painstakingly retranslating the ancient tomes, building the true foundation for the future of the Order.

Soon after the extent of the civil war's damages had become apparent, Silbus took it upon himself to recover the knowledge of alchemy, with the aim of replicating and eventually surpassing the ancient Sith's achievements in manipulating and creating life. Progress was slow and hard-won; it took years just to lay the groundwork, which consisted in the art of merely subduing and dominating the minds of brutes.

Though practically any Force-user could be trained in the essentials of Beast Control, such domination was usually short-lived and dependent upon one's stamina and concentration—unless one had an innate knack for it, of course. Ancient Sith Lords, on the other hand, had held the power to assemble entire armies of ravenous creatures, keeping them in subjection indefinitely and with hardly any effort—as Silbus had done with all the ones in Trayus Academy. Sith alchemy then made it possible to permanently alter their biology, producing monsters far deadlier and more suited to their masters' uses—of which the life-draining leviathans and Jedi-devouring terentateks were only some of the most famous.

Had it not been for Lord Silbus' tireless efforts toward unlocking the first of these secrets, Vosca Tyrnith and his fellows would have no beast armies at all to command. And thanks to him, there also would never be a repeat of the disaster at Dxun, where four Sith Lords had used a cruder, less stable dark side ritual to command a small army of bomas, and a drexl larva besides, against the forces of Queen Talia. The mere interruption of the ritual by Meetra Surik's meddling companions had disrupted their control and ultimately lost them the battle.

Those same four Sith Lords, all former colleagues of Silbus, had also been passengers aboard the _Ravager_ with him. It had always puzzled him that the Lord of Hunger had not sent him with them to Dxun. But in hindsight, of course, he did not mind being spared that assignment.

Silbus and Tyrnith were broken out of their ruminations by the muffled sound of a body tumbling into the adjacent pen, followed by those of snarling, screaming, chewing, and the like. They resumed their walk and their conversation, pivoting from day-to-day mundanities to topics of scholarship. As they went, they passed a few other Beastkeepers as well as some Wranglers, the latter of whom Silbus privately regarded as a comical bunch. Though they had been trained as Sith Acolytes and practiced in the beginnings of Beast Control, they traipsed about carrying stun poles and clad in red-colored armor similar to that of the typical army troopers, as though uncertain of the power they wielded or, more accurately, participated in.

Someone turned out to be haunting the corridor who was neither Wrangler nor Keeper; it was a Lethan Twi'lek named Yaiban Retwin, a friend of Gorbus' and like him a Sith Marauder. As the Headmaster and the Arkanian passed him, he attached themselves to their presence like an extra shadow, following and listening to their conversation as though he had always been with them. Tyrnith gave him only a glance, and Silbus gave him even less than that.

"Karness Muur's reputation is extravagant," the Headmaster was saying, "considering that more than half of the works ascribed to him are forgeries and fakes. And the man himself was little more than a posturing charlatan, as any thorough look at the historical record will show. _That_ is why I never taught him."

"His contemporaries are a bit more generous to him," Tyrnith ventured.

"According to biographies centuries removed," Silbus replied decisively, "not to their own written testimonies—on the rare occasion that they see fit even to mention his name. Even if his supposed texts _were_ written by real alchemists, the Order will learn a hundred times more from Fulminius Graush by the time I've finished with him."

Abruptly he stopped and turned to the Twi'lek. "Yaiban, it's splendid to have you with us. I'd like to show you something you will not see in those sparring chambers." Before Yaiban could respond, the Headmaster waved a hand, causing the heavy iron door of a nearby pen to grind its way open, sending a jolt of alarm through the Wrangler who had been lounging beside it. Pointing to him, Silbus added, "You, begone," and he was.

The three men remaining at the scene peered into a small, filth-matted room where another boma sat eerily still, its tremendous frame indistinct in the dark. "Go introduce yourself," he said to Yaiban with some cheer. "It will not trouble you at all; its will is a mere extension of my own."

The Twi'lek's face was blank as he looked from the Headmaster to the boma, but the lekku that coiled about his neck and shoulders tightened in a reflexive display of unease.

"Go ahead," the Nautolan urged. "It knows to remain docile to a Sith; I need not even pay it any attention. You will see."

With that, he went back to chatting with Vosca Tyrnith, and after a moment he looked at the pen. Yaiban had one foot outside the door and one hand on the lightsaber at his belt; with his other hand he was petting a muscular hump on the boma's back where he supposed its neck was supposed to be. The creature's huge head bobbed to one side, then to the other, breathing throatily, but it otherwise did not react. Glancing back and seeing that the Headmaster saw him, he retreated into the hall. So occupied was he with the boma that his thoughts drifted open and uncloaked into the Force: _Don't bite my hand, don't bite me, don't move…_

"Did I not tell you?" chided the Headmaster. "Its primal aggression cannot manifest itself unless I will it." Or unless he died, but obviously there was no danger of that.

"It is very impressive, my lord," the Twi'lek admitted as he joined them, his anxiety only slightly eased. He was a reserved man, and certainly more perceptive than his friend, Gorbus. But like most Marauders, he tended to devalue the higher, more complex applications of the dark side, and his resultant ignorance led to worry and apprehension whenever he had to contend with it. It was satisfying to see these broad-shouldered, conceited swordsmen and berserkers suddenly turn skittish as they saw the limits of their skills.

Gesturing into the pen, Silbus added, "Did you know that Mandalore the Indomitable was killed by one of these? One of the galaxy's greatest warriors—an indomitable one, no less—felled by a _boma_. Such is the end of those who rely on brute strength, crude science and weaponry, natural training and talents…" He inhaled deeply. "Ah, ordinary beings. Truly theirs is a wretched lot."

"Quite so, Headmaster," agreed Tyrnith.

The Nautolan gestured, and the heavy door to the pen fell shut with an echoing _boom_ that seemed to stab into his eardrums and set off a wave of spasms in his head-tendrils. He gritted his teeth and bowed his head for a moment, pretending to be in contemplation while he waited for the sensation to ebb. "Now, Yaiban," he said at last, "is there anything else that we…" He trailed off, realizing that the Twi'lek had already excused himself and was hurrying back up the corridor.

"What was he doing here?" asked Tyrnith, frowning as he observed the whelp's departure.

"Wandering, I imagine. Restlessness is a plague in the academy, worst of all among the warriors and the younger Sith. They would rather do _anything_ but focus on their training and studies…" Just then, Silbus recalled for just how many decades he had been making this same kind of complaint, and how very futile it was. Such _beings_ were futile, and when they inevitably met their meaningless ends, more would come in to replace them, hounding the steps of the worthy and the great. When Yaiban or Gorbus were no longer around to annoy him, someone else would be, just as they had gravitated toward him when he had finally been rid of Atton Rand, Visas Marr, and—

He took a deep, sobering breath. The meddling Miraluka was still off chasing the boor across space, or else she had killed him and not yet bothered to tell Silbus about it. But either way, he _was_ rid of them; they weren't _here_. "Never mind that," he said, as much to himself as to Tyrnith. "Where were we?"


	8. The Cistern

At first, Belsavis seemed to be a pristine white orb like a frozen star, too beautiful to be a planet at all. As the _Ebon Hawk_ closed in, however, black spots appeared which turned out to be volcanic craters, some of which were many kilometers across. The illusory liquid-smoothness of the surface gave way to cracked, splintered expanses of glaciers and frozen mountain ranges.

Braced in the co-pilot's seat, Kaevee stared out the viewport, somewhat mesmerized as Atton guided them into the atmosphere, cutting through buffeting winds and swirls of snow. It never snowed on Dantooine; she only knew what the stuff was because of holos.

The freighter slowed as a solid shape appeared out of the gray-white haze before them. It was a huge fragment of slate-gray rock, all random, sharp angles and rough faces, as though a giant had ripped a chunk out of a mountain. Atton put the ship on repulsorlifts and hovered before the structure for a moment, typing at his console and sending out a short-wave transmission. Presently, a rectangular section of the rock face near the top slid away, revealing a small, dimly-lit hangar. As he eased the ship inside and set it down, Kaevee glanced at telemetry and realized that they must have flown through a containment field of some kind; the outside temperature had gone from fifty below freezing to just about freezing.

Readouts chimed and landing gears groaned as Atton powered the ship down and the cockpit lights started going out. "We're here," he said matter-of-factly as he got up. "Let's get going. She's waiting for us."

Kaevee needed no encouragement and hurried after him to the loading ramp. "What is this place?" she asked. As though drawn by her excitement, the laigrek met her in the main hold and clacked along at her side.

"It's an abandoned monastery of some kind," Atton explained. "Whoever it belonged to, they left most of their equipment behind." The ramp shuddered, clanked, and lowered itself with a hiss, letting in a rush of cold air that sent shivers through the three creatures at its top. The laigrek squirmed, growled, and began to retreat, but Kaevee gave a little tug on its mind, and it stayed with her. Atton led the way out into the hangar and to its exit, behind which lay what turned out to be the first of many staircases leading down.

Level by level, they trekked toward the bottom of the hollow hill, passing through bare corridors and theaters and galleries, all of them seemingly cut from the same plain stone as the building's exterior. Light shone in abundance from snow-colored glowstrips about the edges and corners of every room. The ceilings were exaggeratedly high—twenty feet in the rooms, thirty or more in the halls.

It was no longer cold enough for Kaevee to see her breath, but the air still felt as sharp as a blade in her throat. And that stark, monochromatic place was so very quiet that she was self-conscious about the sound of their footsteps. It struck her as somewhat repulsive that a Jedi would choose to live in a place so devoid of warmth and life. Then again, it was apparently a hideout, not a home. And to be fair, the sublevel of the Jedi Enclave wasn't a beautiful place—though Dantooine itself was, unlike Belsavis.

Atton led her down and down and down, past another collection of nondescript rooms, and then down some more, saying nothing the whole way. Since asking him about Meetra Surik the previous day, the Padawan had hardly been able to get a word out of him. His sudden silence was perplexing, given how he normally seemed bent on drilling her with technical minutiae. She gingerly reached out to him with the Force, focusing, and sensed his thoughts going by in a low, smooth stream of… what? Worry? Or was it just daydreaming?

She turned her focus away, stretching farther outward, and immediately felt another, stronger presence in the Force which drove all other thoughts from her mind. Her pulse quickened as she realized that she was finally going to have a Jedi Master again. She would remember everything she had forgotten, learn everything that Emon hadn't lived to teach her; she would have answers, training, a purpose, a mission…

At the bottom of a winding staircase that was two or three times longer than the previous ones, they came to what had to be the final chamber. At its center stood a waist-high cistern filled nearly to the brim with water, the surface of which was so still that it appeared at first to be frozen. Hanging by a chain over that was an ornate metal fixture, cradling an empty glass cylinder where, Kaevee guessed, a candle may once have rested. Her eyes tried to follow the chain, but it raced upward and upward until it lost itself in sheer darkness. The room was round and subtly cone-shaped, its walls reaching outward at a slant as they approached a hidden ceiling.

As they stepped around the cistern, a voice with the gentle, refined accent of the Core seemed to float down to them. "Hello, Atton. Welcome back."

Atton tilted his head back and called, "Thanks, Atris. I found her." He rooted himself before a flight of stairs carved into the wall which led up and stopped, just where the light began to fade, at a little platform supporting a stone chair. A figure in a dark cloak was descending slowly, awkwardly. For a moment there was no sound except the scuffing of her shoes on the steps and her patient, laborious breathing.

As Kaevee watched the figure's descent, a surge of relief swept over her like a summer breeze, and she had to remind herself to breathe. _Atris is alive,_ she realized. _One of the Council is still alive!_

But when the famed Jedi Master stood before her in the full light at last, something else began to well up in Kaevee's heart besides excitement—a vague apprehension. She had never seen anyone who looked so _fragile_: an old, slightly hunchbacked woman with branch-thin limbs draped in robes of smoky gray. Her hood was up and pulled as far forward as it would go, casting half of her face in shadow as though to shield it from the light. The raw, skeletal-looking fingers of her left hand clutched the bulbous head of a dark, gnarled wood cane.

Atris raised her head toward Kaevee, and one of her dark blue eyes glinted beneath her hood as a stray bit of light caught it. "And what is your name?"

"Kaevee," said Kaevee, standing as straight as a rail and hiding her fidgeting hands behind her back. Feeling she ought to say something else but unsure what it should be, she gestured at the laigrek beside her and added, "Uh, that's my pet."

Her pet's coal-flame eyes were turned toward the darkness above them. Sensing its interest, Kaevee willed it to stay put.

"An unusual choice for a pet," the old woman remarked with just a hint of a smile.

Atton cut in then, suddenly just as talkative as he'd ever been. "I found her in the Enclave, just like you said. She says she'd been there since Darth Malak bombed the place. I should mention the Sith threw a party for us there, and we had to run for it. Also, the guy on Ord Lonesome's running late with the supplies, and we had a little trouble on our way out of the spaceport…" Summing it up, he said, "So just for the record, I think we'd better not stay on Belsavis for very long. Because the way our luck's been going, we'll probably have visitors soon."

"Yes, you're probably right about that," Atris murmured. "But in spite of these setbacks, you've done very well."

The pilot shrugged and flashed an easy smile. "Aw, shucks."

Both of them regarded Kaevee again, and the Padawan fought to contain all the feelings of abandonment and longing and doubt that had accumulated in her spirit for eleven long years—feelings that she would finally be able to leave behind. Her chest was tingling, and she realized that she wanted to laugh. But she had to stay calm and composed, and she had questions that needed to be answered. "Master… Master Atris," she ventured, "how did you know I was on Dantooine?"

Glancing away, the old woman cleared her throat. "Please, it's just 'Atris.' But to answer your question, Atton sought my help to gather allies who could use the Force. That is why he found me here a month ago. I delved deep into the Force, and searched… until I saw you there on Dantooine."

"How could you have…" Kaevee's first thought was to marvel at such a feat of clairvoyance, but she trailed off as the sense of apprehension returned, stronger than before. "Wait. What do you mean, when Atton found you?"

"I don't understand."

"Isn't it you who found him? He's your— Or he _was_ your Padawan. Wasn't he?"

Atris seemed to find this question so perplexing that she did not immediately respond, instead biting her lower lip gently. Her head twitched toward the pilot, who again had fallen ambiguously silent.

"Yeah… I suppose it's about time I cleared this up," he said, a bit sheepishly.

With widening eyes, Kaevee looked back and forth between Atton and Atris and finally realized that she was not where she thought she was, and she did not know either of these people at all. Unspoken though it was, the truth hit her like a blaster bolt to the chest.

She tried to block it—too late.

"No," she said. "You're both Jedi. You brought me here to train me, to help rebuild the Order…"

The old woman stood very, very still. "Kaevee… Is that what Atton told you?"

"No, it isn't_,_" Atton said instantly. "This is all just a misunderstanding. We're not Jedi. _I'm_ not a Jedi, I'm just a… a guy with a lightsaber. You're here because we need help fighting the Sith. That's what this is about."

The Padawan stared at him, racking her brain as she tried to make sense of what he was saying. "What— What do you mean, _'a guy with a lightsaber'?_ How can you be— If Atris didn't train you in the Force, who did?"

"Somebody else. It's a long story, and really not important right now…"

Kaevee's hands were beside her now, clenched tight. "Not important? _Not important?_ You _lied_ to me! You said you were a Jedi Knight—"

"No I didn't… I did _not_," Atton insisted, tossing an annoyed glance Atris' way. "_You_ just decided to _assume_ that's what I was, and you caught me off guard, so I decided to go along with it."

"What for?" demanded the old woman, an edge coming into her voice for the first time.

"So she would shut up. So I could leave the explaining to you."

To Kaevee's slight relief, Atris seemed equally unconvinced by Atton's excuses. "Why could you not explain yourself?"

"Because I've been just a_ little_ stressed, risking my neck flying all over the galaxy—"

Kaevee thrust a finger at him, seething. "You _did_ lie to me, Atton! You didn't tell me the truth!"

"I told you the Jedi truth."

"The… _What?_"

Before, Atton had seemed anxious and even flustered, but now all of a sudden he had a face of stone, immune to the Padawan's anger. "A Jedi truth," he explained, "is when a Jedi lies to you in order to get you to do the right thing." After a beat, he added, "And that's what I did, except I'm not a Jedi."

Kaevee was so baffled by this gibberish that it blunted her indignation, leaving her merely wounded and confused. Desperate for someone who could restore sanity to the universe, she turned to Atris. "But you're a Jedi. You'll train me—won't you?"

Again the old woman bit her lip. "I am here to share what I know of the Force, but I'm no Jedi, not any longer."

Kaevee's mouth was dry. "You… went down the dark path, then."

"You would say that I did—yes, for a time. I've come to see that the Jedi teachings themselves are what led me to that path. But back then, of course… these robes were white, and they deceived all who saw them—no one more perfectly than their wearer."

"This is… This can't be true. The Jedi ways are right, and you were on the Council. You _can't_ have turned to the dark side."

Atris was quick to reply, and her voice was suddenly higher, sharper—commanding. "And how would _you_ know this, Padawan? How well do you know me? Was I too powerful, too deeply immersed in the light to ever turn away from it? There was a time when we thought the same of Revan. Of Exar Kun, Ulic Qel-Droma, Freedon Nadd. Do you know these names?"

"Of course I do," Kaevee snapped. "What does this—"

"Have you never asked yourself why these tyrants, every last one of them, were once Jedi?"

"They _weren't_ Jedi, they were Sith. They abandoned their training and were seduced by the—"

"The _dark side_, yes," interrupted the old woman. "But what is this dark side? Can you tell me?"

Kaevee was not sure what to say. She honestly couldn't remember ever being given a simple definition, and she had never dreamed of one day having to explain it to the Chronicler of the Jedi Order. But she had to say something, though her words tripped over one another. "It's— It's what the Sith use. They follow lust for power, they think only about themselves. But Jedi are selfless, and we serve others. You can't possibly have forgotten that."

The old woman chuckled mirthlessly. "Just _listen_ to yourself: so ignorant, yet so confident. But this is what we wanted all along, loyal zealots to repeat our empty dogmas back to us. It's thinking like that that insulated the Council. We Jedi, _we_ are never selfish, never seek our own power. We have no need to look inward, to judge ourselves. Only the Sith may be judged—our offspring who took after us too closely. How much you would have pleased us, Vima and Vrook and I, all the masters."

Atton, who had taken to meandering aimlessly about the room, gave her a sideways glance. "Hey, you're on a roll. You don't need to slow down or anything—just let me know when class is over."

Kaevee didn't hear him. Master Vrook's lightsaber was still heavy in her pocket, and the scornful mention of his name called up memories of the stink of his entrails when she had found his body. "You can't do this to me," she hissed. "I was alone for eleven years, waiting for the Jedi to come back for me, and now it's all for _nothing?_ You think you can steal my _destiny_ from me?!"

Atris stood her ground, but her tone softened a bit. "Kaevee, the Jedi Order is finished. It has been gone for years, and there is so much more that you could learn about the Force than they—"

"No, there _isn't_. The Jedi have preserved the light in the galaxy for thousands of years. We can't just _disappear_. The Force would never allow that to happen!" The Padawan glared into the darkness that covered Atris' face, searching for her eyes. "Not even with _you_ turning your back on the Order."

There was a pause, and the old woman looked away as though to consider her words. Slowly, she twisted the cane in her hand, and its point grated against the floor.

A few feet away, the laigrek had sat down and was watching them, uncomprehending, while Atton continued to pace on the other side of the room, humming to himself.

The Padawan's stare did not waver—until that same glinting eye peered out at her from beneath the hood as Atris broke her silence. "Did Atton happen to tell you about Katarr?"

"Yes…"

"What if I told you that the massacre there was my doing? That _I_ was responsible for the Order's destruction?"

"Now you're just— This is crazy. The _Sith_ are the ones who attacked Katarr."

"The Sith attacked because I wanted them to. I called for a conclave on a world strong with the Force, but I did not attend it myself. It was _meant_ to draw our enemies to Katarr so that the Jedi could destroy them." Her next words came out slowly, clinically. "Katarr is a wasteland now, a world drifting dead through space, because I underestimated the Sith. Because _I_ was so sure of myself, sure that the _will of the Force_ was on my side."

Kaevee listened, no less perplexed than she was outraged. She struggled in vain to find some point of balance in the conversation; but one moment she was castigating a former Jedi Master, and the next she felt a need to justify her. "You can't _mean_ that," she protested frantically. "You only made a mistake, and you're blaming yourself for what the Sith—"

Atris slammed her cane against the floor with a terrifyingly sudden energy, and a sound like a small thunderclap went ricocheting into the darkness overhead. Kaevee jerked back, the laigrek started with a croak, and Atton froze in place, but the sound was nothing compared to the fury that came into the old woman's voice now. "An entire world died because I used its people and my own friends as bait, and YOU DARE make excuses for me because I was a JEDI! The _arrogance_… You are half a Sith already, so poisoned with our conceit. The same way we poisoned our prodigies and champions, from Exar Kun to Revan, to Bastila Shan—"

Shocked though she was, Kaevee quickly recovered herself, and the former Jedi's outburst set her nerves on fire. "You're _insane!_ I will _never_ turn to the dark side, and neither would Bastila Shan!"

"Oh _no?_ Then tell me what trials you have passed, Padawan. What far corners of the galaxy have you wandered, what evils have you faced and overcome? Would you even know the darkness if it rose up before you, or welled up in your own heart? It's a proud soul indeed that would feel so secure—" At first Atris merely shook with rage, but suddenly she broke off, coughing so violently that she seemed about to collapse. A few meters away, Atton started toward her as though to catch the old woman, but she waved him off with her free hand.

Except, as Kaevee saw then, the end of that sleeve was empty, the arm within it terminating at a stump of flesh. Recovering her breath, the former Jedi Master pressed that stump to her hood and pulled it back, revealing a hairless, ashen-colored head. In place of her left eye was a mess of scar tissue that stretched back toward her ear and down, covering most of the cheek. From her right eye, a glistening line of tears trailed down toward her bloodless lips.

Speechless with horror, Kaevee backed away until she bumped into the cistern in the middle of the room.

"But in the end, _Master Atris_ was not so proud," the old woman rasped. Then, with an abruptness that seemed tinged with embarrassment, she raised her hood again.

A numb, agonizing moment passed, and the Padawan only stared and wished she could disappear.

Atris drew herself up. "Forgive me, Kaevee. I should have greater control over myself… Moreover, I'm sorry that Atton deceived you, and I'm sure that he…" She hesitated—and Atton, back across the room again, continued humming to himself. "Never mind that. I realize that this is painful for you, and I did not mean to make things worse. There is no need for us to be adversaries; there is much that I will be happy to teach you about the Force. I simply ask you to accept the reality that there is much you do not yet know. But for now, the galaxy is in need." She extended the stump of her left hand in a conciliatory gesture. "Join us."

Kaevee found her voice again. "Take me back."

"_What_ did you say?" demanded the pilot as he crossed the room.

"I said, take. Me. Back." She looked at him with undisguised contempt. Tears had finally begun to stain her cheeks and she wiped them away, angry with herself for being vulnerable in front of this stranger. "To Dantooine. I don't know who you people really are. But whatever you're planning, I want nothing to do with it. All I want—the only thing I've _ever_ wanted—is to be a Jedi. If you won't give me that, I won't help you. I'll just go back home to the Enclave and wait, like I did before. Until the Jedi finally find me again."

Atton looked dumbfoundedly at Atris. "I run across the galaxy and almost get myself killed for _this?_"

"I'm sorry," Kaevee said, though sympathy was the last thing on her mind, "but that's your problem."

"It's not gonna be just _my_ problem when the Sith come flooding in from the Unknown Regions. Are you okay with that, kid?"

"Stop calling me a _kid_, Atton!" she shouted. "I'm twenty-three!"

"Then pay attention and stop _acting_ like a kid. Do you remember anything I told you before? Sith invasion, galactic war, zillions of people going to die—does any of that ring a bell?" Again the pilot gave Atris a pointed look. "Or are you gonna _meditate_ your way out of that uncomfortable reality—just like half of you Jedi did with the Mandalorians?"

"I can help fight the Sith when I'm trained. Trained by _real_ Jedi."

Atton's veneer of flippancy seemed at last to melt into genuine anger. "The Jedi are _dead_, do you read me? They're done, over with, gone. You're not even a Jedi yourself, just some half-trained Padawan. The lady just offered to train you more! But no, you'll just go back to hiding in those ruins… All just because you're scared to move on. That's really what all this is about."

"I'm not scared," Kaevee shot back, "you don't know anything about me, and the Jedi are _not dead!_ They _will_ come back, and I'm not going to be like you. You're just a— You're not anything, you're _scum._ You self-centered, inconsiderate, arrogant—"

"Hey, stop it, _stop _it, you're making me blush." Atton passed a hand over his eyes. "Look, I'm not gonna try and force you to stay and help us. There's no time, and I might just shoot myself. You really so bent on going back to Dantooine? Then hell with it, I'll drop you off there—free of charge, even. Guess what, though, nobody's gonna come… Actually, you know who _will_ come? More Sith, but you'll get to deal with them yourself, and we both know how that'll turn out."

He turned to go. "I mean, they've almost killed you what, twice already? What the hell did you survive the _first_ time for?" Kaevee glared numbly at his back as he stomped from the room, leaving a silence like death behind him. When he had gone, the laigrek shuffled over to the cistern, stretched itself up over the edge, and lapped idly at the water inside.

The girl heard Atris shuffle up behind her. Her still-running eyes were nailed to the empty fixture that hung over the cistern. She didn't want to listen anymore, wanted to leave, but felt that she was frozen there. Another word might shatter her.

"I'm sorry… It was not supposed to happen this way." The old woman sounded as exhausted and desolate as Kaevee felt. "Do you really believe that a Jedi will find you on Dantooine?"

Kaevee looked down to her own image in the rippling water. Her hands gripped the cistern's edge. She forced her throat open enough to say, "It doesn't matter. I have to go back."

"Why do you have to?"

_Trust the Force, Kaevee._

"It's the right thing. It's what they'd want me to do."

"Your Master would not want you to do this to yourself. He would want you to move on."

On hearing those words, Kaevee clenched her teeth until they felt ready to shatter, trying to clamp down on a sob before it could escape. The voice belonged to Atris, but it was so soft and understanding that it sounded like Emon. It sounded true. But it couldn't be, she thought. The Jedi way couldn't be so easy. "You don't understand."

There was a gentle scuff against the floor as Atris began to turn away. "Perhaps I do understand. But we will not force you to join us. You can only do what you feel is right. I suggest you take some time and find out what that is."


	9. Choices

As he navigated the darkness of the Gand-sized maintenance space under one of the _Ebon Hawk_'s engine units, Atton cursed loudly and heartily. This wasn't easy, because he often had to hold the glowrod in his mouth as he opened or replaced access panels and groped and felt around blind corners. Crawling and slithering his way between transcore receptors and particle tubes, he felt like Kaevee's laigrek, or any number of other small, slimy, creepy-crawly things. When the stream of profanity had naturally run itself dry, he held a conversation with Ecksee, who was hovering noisily just a few meters away, back in the engine room where actual people were supposed to be.

"Are you sure the starboard hull's clean?" he called. "How about the exhaust vents? Or the landing gear compartments?"

The droid crackled incredulously.

"_Yeah_, double-check 'em. It's possible you missed something. Droids aren't perfect."

Ecksee had a few choice words about himself and about Atton—he was contrarian, as always. And people thought _Atton_ was full of himself.

"No, I'm _not_ being paranoid," the actual person barked when the droid had quieted down. "Just check 'em again already! It's not _that_ cold out there, and you're a machine. Make me happy, dammit."

There was a surly whistle, and the spastic sound of Ecksee's repulsorlift began to fade down the corridor.

A few more minutes passed. When Atton had had enough of molesting the _Hawk_'s engines, he wormed his way out of the crawlspace and leaned against the hyperdrive unit, rubbing his sore neck. Ostensibly, he hated dealing with the ship and the droids, but there was something therapeutic about it, even though they couldn't really accomplish anything without any spare parts. And he knew that Ecksee wasn't going to find a _second_ Sith homing beacon on the hull or anywhere else. But after that lovely little chat down by the cistern, he'd needed to blow off steam.

He cocked his head at the Remote, which hung in an upper corner of the engine room. "What are you lookin' at?" he grumbled. "I could've sent _you_ in there, you know."

The droid bizzled and whizzled, honestly wanting to know why he hadn't.

Atton shambled off without bothering to answer. Useful as the Remote sometimes was, Atton didn't like seeing or talking to him—or it, whatever. Despite what had happened to the Remote's maker, it still didn't feel like it really belonged to Atton the way Ecksee did.

He went to the communications room, where some of the ship's blinking, humming guts were still exposed, begging to have circuits switched out, the modulator scoured… But again, Atton reminded himself, there was nothing to do until all of Cole's goods were in and ready. And as far as he knew, his Jedi trust was still sulking somewhere down in the monastery, so he had two things to wait on.

Sith invasion, Visas and her squad of killers catching up to him, the collapse of the Republic—each of these things was creeping closer, hour by hour. But all Atton wondered was how much time was left before he'd lose his mind and crawl back into the _Ebon Hawk_'s bowels—but for good this time, and start chewing on the power cables like a mynock.

Another presence in the Force bumped up against his as footsteps came up the corridor, punctuated by a regular wooden tap against the metal floor. _Shields up. What's in my hand? Got a plus-one card, two plus-twos…_ He turned as Atris appeared in the doorway. With no warmth he said, "Hi. You talk to Kaevee lately?"

She shook her head. "Not since our meeting. You've made things much more difficult than they needed to be."

Atton pressed his lips together. Despite their being acquainted, it still amazed him that he had willingly sought out this woman, given his past experience with another scheming, decrepit Jedi hag. But even though the last one had scolded and badgered him enough to last the rest of his life, he had to admit he deserved it this one time. "I know," he said from his throat. "But it's too late to fix it."

"Let us hope you are wrong, Atton. Let us hope that she will learn to trust us, in time."

"Yeah, hope's well and good. But I'm not gonna hold my breath waiting after how she was talking down there. You know, it's been a good, long while since I had to listen to someone blather on about how important the Jedi are. Almost forgot what it sounded like. It's hard to believe anyone could still think like that."

"The Jedi were her family," Atris pointed out. "And since she lost them, it seems that no one took their place. With no one to guide and direct her, what else would she think?"

Guidance and direction—what nice little words. "Right, she's been brainwashed. Believe me, I get it."

"Which is all the more reason to be delicate with her—and to be _honest_." Atton pivoted as the crone hobbled past him to one of the console chairs, spun it around with a flick of the Force, and sat down. "It will not be easy to open her mind and divest her of her ignorant Jedi commonplaces. And it will take some time. Assuming, of course, that she does choose to stay with us."

_Yeah,_ thought Atton, _and I think I'll leave the recovering Jedi therapy work to you._ "Do you think she will?"

"Do you?"

Atton hesitated, brooding over the trouble he'd gone through for the trip to Dantooine—the cost in precious time, not to mention getting ambushed by the Sith—and the prospect of doing it again just to get the starry-eyed brat out of his hair. "Couldn't tell you," he said at last. "Far as convincing her goes, I can't think of anything I didn't say to her down there."

The hag smiled subtly. "The same arguments that convinced me."

That was true. When Atton had finally caught up with Atris a month ago, following scraps of clues across the Outer Rim, she had taken some convincing. But bringing up the whole Mandalorian Wars thing had put a bigger dent in her resistance than anything else had.

"But she doesn't think with her brain," he pointed out, adding silently, _Like most women._ "It might just come down to how stupid she is. Or how brave."

"She _is_ brave… or she can be. I can see that in her."

"Oh, really." Atton hadn't wanted to start another argument, but he really couldn't help but sneer at that—more mystical handwaving babble. "Well, to be honest, I'm having a hard time trusting what _you_ can see. You knock yourself out for a day and a half, then come out of it saying there's a Jedi on Dantooine who can help us—"

"And there _was,_" she reminded him icily.

"But she's the worst Jedi I've ever _met_. Listen, I just spent a week in space with her. That kid doesn't know anything. Hardly got any practical skills. She can just barely fight, I assume, but she's basically a hermit—except she's sixty years too young for the job, so she hasn't got all the wrinkles." Atris gave him a warning grimace, but he continued. "And she's an emotional basket case, as we've both seen already. I knew going into this that we'd be scraping the bottom of the canister, but is she _really_ the best this farsight of yours could dreg up? Or was the Force just not with you that day?"

Atris stabbed the floor with her cane and pushed herself to her feet. "I will not listen to this nonsense."

Atton rolled his eyes as the hag brushed past him. "All right, all right, forget I said anything. But really, just tell me this kid's gonna be worth the trouble. Tell me the Force is strong with her, or something."

"Strong with the Force," she murmured dreamily, pausing in the doorway. "What do you wish her to be, Atton? Yet another prodigy, full of light and power? Stronger than either of us? I am not so certain _that_ would be worth the trouble. The Force has no more chosen ones—not for us. We both should understand that well."

He listened to her steps as they faded down the corridor.

The ship was quiet after that. Atris took to the port dormitory, which hopefully she would not start calling her "chambers", Atton had the ship more or less to himself. Though Atris took to the port dormitory, which hopefully she would not start calling her "chambers," and did not emerge. Atton spent the next few hours ambling around and distracting himself. Eventually, Ecksee returned with its report on the hull inspection—that it had found nothing—and a personal remark. After choking down dinner, Atton took his seat in the cockpit, counted cards, and tried to catch a nap.

* * *

Dazed and weary, Kaevee wandered through one of the lower levels of the frozen monastery, drifting from granite room to granite room, unable to stay still as she tried to make sense of everything that had happened, tried once again to sift through the wreckage of her life.

As far as appearances went, the monastery was quite unlike the Jedi Enclave: perfectly preserved, with no crumbling pillars or bombed-in ceilings. On the other hand, they had emptiness in common, and more important, they felt _wrongly_ empty. The Jedi had been slaughtered, leaving a wound on Dantooine, while whoever had once lived here seemed to have simply vanished.

The wing she had drifted into appeared to have served as quarters for the monks. Its chambers were identical, each one less than half the size of the dorm on the _Ebon Hawk_ and furnished with little more than a narrow bed and a desk. She methodically went from one cell to the next, looking for little variations between them—tears in the mattresses, chips or cracks in the walls, the odd scrap of cloth or other bits of debris on the floor. Many of the glowstrips were out, throwing random corners and sections of wall into heavy darkness.

Following but lagging behind, the laigrek poked about in the shadows, croaking and chittering as though in protest against the cold. With all the busywork aboard the _Ebon Hawk_, Kaevee hadn't had time to pay the creature much attention. Nor could she now as she dragged herself through the slate corridors. She had no strength in her, but her exhaustion wasn't physical; it was the familiar weight of desolation.

Atris' betrayal of the Jedi Order and her contempt for its memory had shaken her, but in many ways she was stung more by what Atton had done. She thought back to Ord Lonesome, when she had expressed doubts about associating with Cole Terrick. Still playing the part of a Jedi Knight, Atton had chided her, saying she needed to learn to see beneath the surface. What a joke that had turned out to be.

The pilot's sneering questions gnawed at her thoughts. _What the hell did you survive the _first_ time for?_ Yesterday, when the hope his deception had given her had still been alive, she would have been able to answer him: it was so she could be found and trained as a Jedi again. That was the only thing she knew of that could make sense of these long, long years; that was the reason she had survived. For her, this was a fact as plain as gravity, as immutable as mathematics.

One could frame this as a belief in destiny, or in the will of the Force, but Kaevee had no knowledge of these concepts as such. One of the only things she could vividly remember of her Master was how he had told her, emphatically, that she needed to _Trust the Force_. But Emon had never explained exactly what he meant by that, or if he had, those lessons were long forgotten. What had stayed with his Padawan was not any solid, conscious belief, but a feeling—though it wasn't any less strong for that. She believed that she was supposed to become a Jedi Knight as she believed that she existed. If the Jedi had really ended, then that was the end of her, too.

_They've almost killed you what, twice already?_ But when Atton had rescued her, that was actually the _third_ time. He couldn't have known about the second time, six years before, when the Sith had invaded the Enclave and started slaughtering the laigreks, and Kaevee had run away again. He couldn't have known of how she'd come back and found kinrath scuffling about the corpse of Master Vrook in the Taikaha Hills. Though the brutes had been on him, he was unmistakably dead from a lightsaber wound.

She'd made the kinrath carry Vrook, what was left of him, back to the Enclave—where she then found Masters Kavar and Zez-Kai Ell. Their bodies were still cooling, and no animals had touched them yet. And yet the filthy, wretched, scum-sucking salvager _vermin_ had already taken their lightsabers.

_But she still had Vrook's, and she clutched it tight to her chest as she sat in front of the pyre she had built in the ruins where the Council Chamber used to be. The fire filled her raw eyes, and occasionally she tipped her head back to watch as glowing flecks of ash spiraled up through the hole where the dome had once been and out into the starless night._

_At least she had done the right thing here. She'd been to funerals before and knew that they burned their dead; it was the Jedi thing to do. There was no one else to officiate. There was supposed to be a book, but she didn't have it, and in any case, there was no one to read the rites to—only the horde of laigreks which she had called out of the sublevel, their eyes forming a glimmering red constellation that enveloped the ruins. If the salvagers or anyone else dared to investigate the fire, Kaevee's pets would keep them at bay._

_They could protect her, but only she could mourn._

_It had occurred to Kaevee that the Sith might still be lurking on Dantooine. Perhaps the fire would catch their attention and bring them back to the Enclave._

_At that hour, though, she wasn't sure she would mind if it did._

Kaevee emerged from the memory gradually as though from a dream. But the old questions that had tortured her that night and for many nights afterward sullied her thoughts.

What had secretly brought three Jedi Masters back to Dantooine? Had they been looking for Kaevee, or meeting together for some other reason? What might have happened, had they found her? With _them_ dead too, how long would she have to wait for someone else to come along to continue her training?

Worst of all, though, when Kaevee had finally been given a chance to help defend the Jedi, a chance to be brave, why hadn't she taken it?

She knew what the consequences would have been, of course. Whoever had managed to kill Vrook and the others would have easily killed her as well, and if three of the Jedi Council had been unable to escape on their own, Kaevee almost certainly wouldn't have been able to make a difference.

But on her own, with no master, what had been the point of surviving for the next six years, when the Jedi who would finally rescue her were not Jedi at all?

_Your Master would not want you to do this to yourself,_ Atris had said. _He would want you to move on._

But Emon was dead, and all Kaevee could think was, _Move on? To what?_

She remembered the settlers who had huddled together in their homes after the Enclave's destruction, terrified of the roaming parties of Sith troopers, and how they had turned her away when she was in need. She remembered them blaming the Jedi for what the Sith had done—just like Atris. And she remembered watching, paralyzed with fear, as Shen Matale burned to death in his home.

Whatever else there was to it, the life that ordinary beings had in the galaxy didn't want Kaevee, and she didn't want it. And she wanted nothing to do with these strangers and their plans—Atton Rand least of all.

She was ashamed to admit, though, as she was ashamed of so many things, that she also didn't want to die.

_You know who _will_ come? More Sith… and we both know how that'll turn out._

Sneering, Kaevee brought a hand to her chest, where she felt the slit in her outer robe that had been left there by Visas Marr's lightsaber. _Of course_ she knew how it would turn out, but that meant nothing to the Force. Her would-be handlers would never understand, but she knew in her heart that she should have stayed the second time and died fighting the Sith.

And yet that critical moment, the climax of her whole life, was gone and had been gone for six years. No matter what the _should_ had been, she had chosen to run. And it would always be that way.

She emerged from yet another cell and found that she had come to the end of the wing. The laigrek had gone ahead of her, just around a corner, and was sniffing at a thick iron door that sat in a dimly lit niche in the wall.

Without thinking, the Padawan stepped forward, threw the door's oversized latch, and shoved it open—and was promptly blinded by a surge of gray light, because the door led _outside_. She yelped as a blast of freezing wind and swirling snow rushed over her and whipped down the corridor. The laigrek squawked in outrage and scurried away, and Kaevee slammed the door shut.

Her teeth chattering, she pulled her cloak tight around herself, jogged to catch up with the laigrek, and together they retraced their steps. "You must hate this planet," she stammered, raking out the snow that had dusted her hair. "Well, I do too. Maybe you should've thought twice before coming aboard a starship…"

But Kaevee listened as the creature clacked along beside her, croaking petulantly, and her admonition immediately rang hollow; she could just as easily have given it to herself.

Sobered by the cold, her thoughts quickly returned to her own predicament. She was tired and miserable, she'd eaten nothing for half a day, and now she was half-frozen, and for all that trouble, her two options were exactly the same as before. She left the monks' quarters, found the main hall, and looked for the stairs leading up.

She bitterly understood that there was no more thinking to be done, no more deliberation, and really there never had been. What she wanted meant nothing. Her choice was not a choice at all, just as it hadn't been when she had run from the Enclave as a girl. She had no choice but to live, or try to, but as she ascended toward the hangar bay where the _Ebon Hawk_ was waiting, she wondered if she would ever be brave enough to die just because it was the right thing to do.

* * *

Atton caught his nap and dreamed that he was back aboard the _Loxley_, young and stupid—so the same except he was young—and charging into a turbolaser control room that the Mandalorians had taken over, his squadmates right behind him. Blaster fire sprayed back and forth as he dove behind an empty munitions canister. Outside, the skies over Malachor V were thick enough with gleaming hulls and storms of laser fire to dwarf the light of its primary, but ship-to-ship combat wasn't personal enough for the Mandos—you had to honorably look into the other man's eyes as you honorably blasted his honorable guts onto the bulkhead—and so they had boarded some of the Republic's capital ships.

The _Loxley_ was one of those ships, and she took a pounding. The invaders had spread themselves thin, but were able to grease half the crew by the time Atton's squad, what was left of it, had gotten to and secured the turbolaser control room. Sparks bled from ruptured power conduits, and a screaming alarm drew Atton's attention to a large readout over the gunner station. It showed another six Mandalorian boarding shuttles, closing in fast. "Kemp," he called, pointing. "Look at this."

His fellow grunt was beside him in a second, studying the readout with wild eyes. The comlink clutched in his fist was abuzz with reports on the last of the firefights going on elsewhere in the ship. "Oh, Sithspit," he said under his breath.

The two men traded a glance before looking again, and Atton's eyes fell from the readout to the gunner station itself. Preceding a bank of control panels which hugged the panoramic viewport, there sat two metal chairs, the larger of which was cast in the bloody glow of a targeting computer readout and was thus clearly meant for the gifted. The smoking bodies of the turbolaser control crew were scattered about, but the station itself seemed to have survived.

"You thinking what I'm thinking?" Atton asked.

Kemp was, and the two shouldered their rifles and hustled over without daring to stop and think twice about it. With the boarding shuttles still approaching, Atton took the big chair and started deciphering the controls. Every cell in his body was charged at once with terror and glee. A blaster rifle was one thing—he practically slept with his under his pillow—but the turbolaser turret of a Republic frigate? He'd never shot such a big gun in his _life._

But when he glanced out the viewport, the boarding shuttles were gone, as were the fleets and the battle itself. And Malachor V was suddenly different. No longer what it had been that day—boring, blue and green like Alderaan—it had changed into the blackened cadaver of a world that he knew it to be now. The place that Meetra loved, the planet of storms.

"You'll get your turn to burn soon enough, beautiful," Atton growled, angry as he realized that he was dreaming.

But it was a disturbance in the Force that actually woke him. It was really more of a slight twinge than a real _disturbance_, though, so he figured he could take his time investigating it.

After rubbing his eyes for a moment, he got up and cracked his neck, and then the muted sound of something hard clacking against metal drew his eyes to the viewport. Kaevee was out in the hangar bay, pacing back and forth a stone's throw from the front of the ship, her pet bug pacing beside her. She was swaddled tight in her cloak, one hand compulsively scouring the jungle of her hair. What was she doing, talking to herself? Psyching herself up for something?

As though sensing Atton's attention, she stopped abruptly and looked straight at him through the transparisteel. He held up a finger, then went and opened the loading ramp. The girl and the bug were scrambling up it before it had lowered all the way.

"You need to show me how to open this thing from the outside. Now close it, close it, _close it_," she said frantically, hovering around Atton as he tapped at the controls. As the ramp shot steam and hissed its way shut again, the laigrek went off into the starboard dorm, making hideous croaking, gurgling noises.

Kaevee blew on her hands. "I'm sick of this planet. Is Atris aboard?"

Atton swallowed. "Yeah, she's in the other dorm. So what's the deal, then? You make up your mind yet?"

Though she was still shivering, the girl let her hands fall beside her and tried to adopt a more dignified look. It was almost cute. "Yes… I've decided I'm going to stay with you. And help you fight the Sith. But I want you to know I'm not giving up. I _will_ be a Jedi Knight someday, I promise."

Sanctimonious as ever. That was fine. Atton could deal with that. _Don't feed the gizka._ He shrugged and said, "Well, I'm glad to hear it. We'll need the help… Listen, you hungry? I don't think the synthesizer's shot just yet."

Kaevee looked askance at him. "That's it?"

He started to head back to the main hold. "Yeah, that's it. I said, are you hungry?"

She hesitated a moment, irritation and bewilderment mingling on her face before she wiped them both off. "Yes. Very."


	10. Listening

The mission was hanging by a thread.

The shadow network continued its restless labor, but since the confrontation on Dantooine it had provided next to no useful data. Meanwhile, the _Celestus_ had continued to prowl the stars and ended up in the aptly-named Ord Lonesome system. A spy satellite here had observed the _Ebon Hawk_ make two visits to the world since its return to known space. Given that the stolen vessel had not been spotted in any other location more than once, it was possible that Ord Lonesome was important to Atton for some reason, and that he would return a third time.

On the other hand, it could have just as easily been another false clue.

Leofel and the others went on analyzing what data they had, trying to edge their hunt out of the status of mere guesswork. Not content to rely on them, Visas ate little, slept little, and spoke little, and when she was not on the bridge, she meditated in her spartan quarters, listening for echoes in the dark. A punishing life had inculcated her with a tireless patience, and she waited for the Force to call to her again, to part the veil of uncertainty that separated her from her quarry.

All the while, her Master waited for them both.

_Tell him… I miss him,_ the Exile had said. _And bring him back to me._

First wistfulness, then venom.

Six years with the Exile had changed Visas, putting a fire and hunger into her where before there had been very little at all. For a time, while they were still seeking out the last of the Jedi, Visas had been perhaps indecisive, suspended between worlds. But a threshold was crossed when she had watched Meetra strike down her first Master on the bridge of the _Ravager_. To see the mighty Lord of Hunger fall, his robe smoking and racked by the Exile's lightsaber; to draw near and touch his now-truly-lifeless body in order to rip aside the mask; to see his face and know that he was only a man, had only been a man all along, was revelatory.

Whatever her other weaknesses, fear had never clouded Visas' sight since then. If she was now able to see one Master as he was, then she could do the same with another; she could see their weaknesses and their mistakes.

One of these was Lord Silbus: a snobbish, myopic bibliophile whose cowardice and vainglory had somehow never received its due reward. Secluded and protected, he was powerful only because his power had never truly been challenged, never been tried by the fires of war. He had no right to rule, and yet he was the one given charge of Trayus Academy, and the Sith Order itself by extension, until the Exile's return—a failing whose consequences could yet prove grave indeed.

But Meetra's greatest weakness, of course, was Atton Rand. By his own admission he knew neither loyalty nor creeds, and no matter what he did for the Exile, or she for him, he would never be truly be a Sith. In that, Lord Silbus had been quite correct, but his early warnings to the ascendant Dark Lord did nothing to move her. Unknown to Silbus, it had not been her concern to form "true Sith," at least not at that time. Years passed, and Atton changed little—except to grow crueler and yet more volatile, even as he grew more powerful. Prudently, Visas had tried to warn their Master, but in the end Atton's betrayal surprised no one as much as the Exile herself.

It was as though she found other beings' minds just as opaque as they found hers.

The door to Visas' quarters chimed, and at her answer Leofel entered and bowed. "M'lady, we have news."

Still sitting, facing away in a meditative posture, Visas waited.

"The satellite has intercepted a transmission meant for the _Ebon Hawk_, sent from Ord Lonesome. We were able to decode it easily enough. It seems that someone wants to rendezvous with them on the outskirts of this system."

Despite herself, it took Visas some effort to keep the hunger out of her voice. Another chance was beginning to take shape. She asked, "Who sent the transmission?"

"A spacer, most likely. We know only the name of their ship: the _Sharp Turn_."

"And where was the transmission sent to?"

"It was received in the Belsavis system, m'lady. One standard day's travel."

Slowly, Visas unfolded her legs and stood. _Belsavis,_ she thought to herself. She knew nothing of the system except that it was in the Bozhnee sector, which was by all accounts unremarkable. "Contact Admiral Varko. Find out if we have any forces within striking distance—or any _Interdictors_ between Belsavis and here."

"I already consulted him, m'lady," Leofel answered dispassionately. "There are none."

Visas took a brief moment to inwardly curse Lord Silbus; were it not for his obstruction, it might have been possible to send one group of assassins to find the _Ebon Hawk_ at Belsavis, while leaving another to wait at Ord Lonesome in case it had left the former system already. But as it was, she had to choose between the two.

"Continue the sensor sweeps," she said as she turned around. "Watch for the _Ebon Hawk_ and for this _Sharp Turn_. We will strike when Atton returns to Ord Lonesome."

The man left for the bridge and Visas returned to her meditations. As she submerged in the Force, she thought that she could already feel the outermost whisper of an echo reaching her—and in the background, as always, was Meetra's presence, like a distant, dark star.


	11. Sharp Turn

"Cutting into sublights in three, two, one."

Kaevee shut her eyes for a moment, bracing herself, and weathered a brief spell of nausea as the _Ebon Hawk_ blinked back into realspace on the edge of Ord Lonesome's system. While Atton ran through the post-jump check, she flicked on the sensor readout and spied an innocuous-looking freighter broadcasting with the comm frequency that she had been told to look for. "There's Cole's ship," she said, reading its ID signature. "Guess it's called the _Sharp Turn_. Two hundred and forty kilometers out."

"Great." When the check was done, Atton switched over to autopilot and left his seat. "Hey, come on. I need a hand with something."

The Padawan nodded and followed Atton to the back of the cargo hold, where he bent down and opened a hidden compartment low in the wall, revealing a black metal strong box.

"What's this?"

"Cole's payment. Thirty thousand credits."

Kaevee watched as he dragged the box out onto the floor. "Thirty _thousand?_ Where'd you get that much money?"

The pilot offered her a fake grin. All his grins looked fake now. "Oh, you know."

"No, I don't."

Atton matched her stare for a few seconds, then snorted and crouched on the other side of the box. "Oh, get over yourself. Nobody died, all right? Now get that end."

"I didn't say anything," Kaevee muttered as they lugged it out into the main hold. When they had set it roughly on the dining table, the pilot thanked her brusquely and disappeared back into the cockpit. She made to follow him, but stopped as she caught sight of the laigrek's head, peeking out from around the corner down at the end of the starboard corridor. A firm touch of the Force sent it back into the dorm, but for good measure she went over and shut the door after it.

A little under an hour later they were standing—and X-C88 was hovering—in the middle-starboard compartment of the ship where the air lock was, just before the loading ramp. Physical limitations exempted the Remote and Atris from helping with the cargo, and in any case the old woman appeared determined to seclude herself entirely in the port dormitory; had Kaevee not been able to sense her presence, she wouldn't have known Atris had left Belsavis with them.

Kaevee gritted her teeth as she tapped at the air lock controls, knowing that Atton was watching her closely. The little box of lights and switches beeped and grumbled to itself for a few seconds. Then, as the huge door slid open with a hiss, she silently thanked the Force that she had remembered the sequence Atton had drilled her on earlier.

On the other side of the portal stood Cole Terrick, mirroring Atton's pose: his hands on his belt, his holstered blaster out in plain view. With their rough boots, stained shirts, and slightly ostentatious jackets, they looked like two men from the same walk of life. To complete the eerie similarity, just as X-C88 hovered behind Atton's shoulder, the spacer had his own droid backing him up. It was an ugly, bipedal gray thing a head taller than himself, sporting five spindly arms projecting from its torso at five different angles.

The two men surveyed each other with expressions of something like suspicion, then moved in unison. Swaggering to meet at the threshold between the two ships, they clapped their hands together and shook roughly, suddenly smiling as if they were old friends. After trading some incidental words, Atton led Cole and his droid back toward the main hold, where the strong box was.

The spacer gave Kaevee a look as he passed her by. "Still here, huh?"

"Yeah, I'm here," she mumbled, unsure what else to say.

They gathered around the dining table, where Atton unlocked the strong box. As Cole carefully raised the lid, the tightly packed rows of credit chips cast a faint gold glow that filled his eyes. A giddy, hungry smile took hold of his face, and a look of disdain took hold of Kaevee's; the sight reminded her of the salvagers on Dantooine—dirty offworlders, coming to rob what remained of the Jedi legacy just for money.

Cole gestured to his droid, which came up to the box and peered inside, its oversized white photoreceptors whirring and rotating, presumably scanning it somehow. "Thirty-thousand credits, captain," it said ponderously. "No signs of counterfeiting."

"All right, then," Atton broke in, reaching over and shutting the box firmly. "Let's get this underway—all the goods for all the credits. In that order."

As the spacer turned to him, his grin faded, but not completely. "Of course. I'm a nice guy."

Cole's ship, the _Sharp Turn_, was a _Heraklon_-class medium freighter. Long and unsightly both inside and out, it had more than twice the carrying capacity of the _Ebon Hawk_. As its owner led them through the main corridor of the ship to one of the cargo holds at the stern, he chatted with Atton and mentioned that he had no time to waste after finishing their business here. "I've got half a dozen more customers lined up."

Though metal was all the same to Kaevee, she did notice that the _Sharp Turn_ seemed to be in a better state than the _Ebon_ _Hawk_. For instance, there were no holes in the walls or ceiling at all. Notably, the corridor and all the doors seemed oversized, presumably in order to accommodate large objects and, Kaevee supposed, more people as well.

Perhaps thinking the same thing, Atton asked, "Where's your crew?"

"It's just me, Foreman, and another droid," Cole answered. "But after this round of customers, I'm hoping I'll have enough creds to hire a few people."

"Yeah, you'll need a real crew if you want to keep a freighter this size in good shape. You have her long?"

"Nah, just under a year. We had a capacitor short out not too long ago, but the parts for this thing are easy to replace, since…"

Walking at the back of the group, Kaevee tuned out the conversation—and the din of Ecksee's warbling repulsorlift—as well as she could. Disgusted as she was by Cole's reaction to the sight of credits, she had no warmer feelings about Atton. It was all an act, she realized, his friendly tone and easy-going persona. He was pretending to be an ordinary person, just as he had pretended to be a Jedi. But what was he actually, beneath the disguises?

She tried to fight down the questions and the disdain. It was wrong of her to feel this way, and this wasn't the time or the place for it, so she turned instead to wondering about Cole's line of work. He seemed to be a freelance middleman between suppliers of goods and ambiguous customers. Based on how he and Atton had worked out this transaction, she guessed that the reason his line of work existed at all was because the customers that he was used to dealing with were people who valued anonymity—people in illegal lines of work, unscrupulous people.

People like Atton Rand and those who would associate with him—a group which, Kaevee was crestfallen to realize, quite irrevocably now included herself.

Cole brought them to another door, which was guarded by the other droid he had mentioned: a floating patrol drone shaped like an inverted letter Y, with twin blasters mounted on the tips of its wing-like appendages. "It's all good here, Moonie," the spacer said with a wave of his hand, and the droid moved aside. Cole punched a code into a panel on the wall and the door slid open, revealing a spacious room cluttered with plasteel drums, chests, and crates.

Kaevee's heart sank. "We have to move all this?"

"Foreman and I will help," Cole offered.

"And so will—" Atton broke off and turned around to see Ecksee hovering back up the corridor. "_Get back here!_" he yelled, and the droid resentfully reversed its course.

As Atton stepped from container to container, checking each one's contents with his datapad, Kaevee clasped her hands together and sat down on one of the plasteel drums. She half-closed her eyes and started repeating under her breath, "I am a Jedi, the Force is with me. I _am_ a Jedi, the Force is with me…"

* * *

"Hey, _kid_, wake up," Atton said, lightly punching the kid in the shoulder. "This stuff's not gonna move on its own." _And stop talking to yourself_, he almost added as she slid off the drum. Glancing around, he saw Cole giving them a doubtful look from the other side of the room.

Pretending not to notice, Atton headed to one of the larger crates and pressed a button on the side, causing little wheels to pop out at each of the bottom corners. As he pushed it out of the cargo bay and down the main corridor, he considered the bad feeling that he'd been having since docking with the _Sharp Turn_. He knew quite well that it was never just a feeling, but until it became a bad _reality,_ there wasn't much he could do about it.

He was startled by a loud bang back in the cargo bay as Kaevee kicked over the plasteel drum that she had been sitting on. She then bent over and started to roll it out after him, following Cole and the droids, who were hauling other pieces of cargo.

It wouldn't have taken a genius to figure out that there was more to this spacer than met the eye—everybody flying out on the Rim was like that. But whatever was behind his façade, Atton was pretty sure that the bad feeling didn't have anything to do with Cole. Kaevee's presence was rubbing him the wrong way, understandably, but he seemed to have the good sense to stay out of Atton's business.

At the same time, the guy could easily become a problem if anything happened to spook him. So Atton kept his concerns hidden and went on with the cargo transfer, swift and casual at the same time, trading innocuous remarks with Cole and snapping at Kaevee or Ecksee whenever he caught them dallying. And all the while he braced himself for whatever catastrophe was racing their way.

An hour and a half later, when only a couple of crates remained and they were returning through the _Hawk_'s main hold yet again, the intercom went off with a high-pitched series of chirps. "What is that?" demanded Cole, wincing at the ceiling.

Atton was privately relieved that the emergency was finally about to get underway. Whatever it was, he'd rather deal with it than wait for it. He stepped to the holotable, silenced the alarm, and switched on the main display. "Proximity alert," he announced. "And we're being hailed. That's nice of them, I guess."

"Nice of who?" asked Kaevee as they all gathered around.

Atton brought up a scan of the incoming ship, a KT-400 military transport. Ships of its class had been used since the Mandalorian Wars to carry battle droids and other hardware, but they'd also been known for having some bite in the double laser cannons mounted on each of their curved wings. Some nonstandard details stood out, most prominently the extra weapon pods and the blood-spatter paint job around the cockpit. "Looks like pirates," he said.

The transmission came in, audio only, and a boisterous, almost theatrical voice addressed them in Huttese. "Crew of the _Ebon Hawk_, welcome back to Ord Lonesome! We would be obliged to treat you kindly if you were to lower your shields and surrender without a fight. It's too bad for Cole Terrick that he decided to do business with you. Tell him we extend our offer to him as well."

While the voice was still blathering, Atton glanced at his companions. Cole's lip curled in outrage. Beside him, the girl squinted at the holotable, then leaned over and whispered, "What's he saying? I don't know Bocce."

The spacer was just opening his mouth when Atton held down the talk button and said the first Huttese phrase that came to mind, which in Basic comes out as a suggestion to go suck vacuum. As he cut the transmission, Ecksee emitted a tortured, staggering series of whistles that approximated a nasty cackle.

"Atton, you _bastard_," exploded Cole, "what are you thinking?! We could've bargained, or bought some time, or—"

Atton didn't look up as he typed at the console, sending a few commands to the _Hawk_'s main computer as well as reviewing the scan of the approaching transport. "If they seem like nice people to you, you can call 'em from your ship… Looks like they're powering up ion cannons," he murmured. _So they don't want to blow us up. That's… good._

Cole sputtered and turned this way and that, while his droid cocked his head as though listening with extreme care. Stepping carefully around them, Kaevee touched Atton's arm and said, "What are we going to do?"

"I'm powering up the turbolaser turrets. You and Ecksee are gonna get the last of the cargo aboard."

"No, you're not," the spacer broke in. "You need to undock this ship right _now!_ We can't transfer the cargo while we're being shot at!"

Atton gave him an austere look as he shut off the holotable. "We can if we're shooting _back_ at them. This baby can handle one tub of pirates." As an afterthought, he indicated the strong box and said, "You can have your payment early, if you like."

Doubting himself momentarily, Atton waited for a beat, measuring Cole's scowl, getting ready to move if the guy went for his blaster. Cole's frustration brimmed over, but all he did was kick the side of the holotable and turn back to his droid. "All right, space you guys," he snarled. "Fore, get that box and secure it in one of the cargo holds right now!" With that he dashed back to the air lock. As Kaevee and Ecksee followed him, Foreman latched onto the strong box with three of his arms and lumbered along behind, and Atton headed for the _Ebon_ _Hawk_'s turret access ladder.

* * *

As Kaevee sprinted through the _Sharp Turn_'s air lock chamber and into the main corridor, she just caught sight of Cole Terrick ducking into a nearby control room. Inside, she found him feverishly working at a computer console. "What're you doing?!" she panted.

"Tryin' to boost the shield power!" he yelled back.

"Why don't you help us against the pirates? Isn't this thing armed?"

"Yeah, sure—do I look like I'm made of credits?!" His face reddening, Cole jabbed a finger at her. "Soon as my payment's secure, kid, I'm undocking us, and you better be the hell off my fraggin' ship by then!"

This puzzled Kaevee, since it was the _Ebon Hawk_ that had magnetically attached itself to the larger ship. "_You're_ going to undock us? How?!"

"I've got a tractor beam! I'll scrape you off my hull if I have to!"

Before the Padawan could offer a retort, Ecksee hummed its way past her, beeping furiously. Rather than make the effort to mentally translate, she simply took it to mean that she was supposed to hurry. She left Cole and followed the droid toward the cargo bay just as klaxons started to blare.

* * *

Briefly, Atton experienced an obscure sense of belonging that approached nostalgia as he strapped himself in behind the dorsal turbolaser turret and brought the controls online. A wide red bar indicating the turret's power level lit up on a panel overhead. Monitors on either side of him came on one by one, their displays flickering, then gleaming steadily. He took hold of the aiming yoke in both hands and tentatively jerked it this way, then that. In response the turret, and his seat with it, whipped back and forth, bringing on a brief wave of nausea as the starfield turned into a crazy blur. He shook his head as he more carefully reoriented himself, pointing the gun straight out from the hull. There was no time to adjust the yoke's sensitivity.

Hardly ideal, and he hadn't had time to test the weapon systems for any other kinks. But he felt at ease in that chair. It was the ease of a soldier.

He pulled the targeting visor down over his face and switched it on, and the device painted the starfield with a yellow cross-hairs and grid, along with a sharp red triangle that moved in perfect sync with the glinting shape of the KT-400 as it dove through the void to meet him.

"Just you and me," he breathed, shifting the yoke millimeter by millimeter until the cross-hairs and the triangle met.

Both ships opened up at once, filling the black between them with multicolored slits of light. Pure flashes of white danced across the hulls as turbo and ion bolts warred with invisible deflector screens. Atton had to squint against the display, which was eye-searing even through his glare-dampening visor, and he fought to keep the controls steady as the _Hawk_ rattled under the assault. He dished it back as best as he could, aiming just below the assailing ship's cockpit, trying to wear down the shields around the chin-mounted weapon ports there.

The KT-400's pilot seemed undaunted even as he took a few hits. He threw his ship into a barrel roll, turning his shots into a cone of electric-blue lines, but he stayed on course even as he continued to rocket straight toward the _Ebon Hawk_.

Atton's stomach crawled up toward his throat, and he spewed curses along with laser fire at the approaching maniac's ship until it veered off at the last possible instant, skimming the _Sharp Turn_'s main hull and peppering its shields with fire as it went. Atton managed to put a turbolaser bolt right over the transport's engines before it cleared the larger freighter's bow and dove out of sight.

For a few seconds everything was still, and Atton was left sweating and staring down the turret's barrel at the end of the _Sharp Turn_, as though he expected the KT-400 to reappear there any second. Then, cursing, he fought his way out of his seat and all but threw himself back down the access ladder, toward the _Hawk_'s ventral turret.

* * *

The guard droid, Moonie, slid sideways into view at the cargo bay's threshold so suddenly that Kaevee and Ecksee almost ran headlong into it. The automaton addressed them in a whining, screeching sort of Droidspeak, its single photoreceptor flashing between the normal white and a threatening red; an unmistakable click sounded from each of the blaster mounts at the ends of its wings. With the _Sharp Turn_ under attack, the droid's priorities must have been altered, causing it to view them as intruders.

Kaevee hastily stepped back, allowing Ecksee to take the lead again. The probe droid floated as close as it dared to the cargo hold's guardian, replying to it in an equally threatening dialect. For added effect, it bobbed up and down while waving its three arms about like a crazed marionette. Moonie was undaunted and even started to edge out from the doorway, its blasters trained on the challenger, and a full-fledged argument commenced, with both droids beeping, shrieking, and buzzing over one another.

The ship rumbled as it took a salvo of energy bolts. Off to the side of the spectacle of the droids, Kaevee watched with a dread that rose toward panic and wondered whether the last of the cargo was really worth the risk of retrieving.

As the Padawan tried to think, the ship was hit again—harder this time, and the lights dimmed for a second. Deciding then that this wasn't the time for thinking, she reached into one of her pockets—then frantically another pocket, then another, then to her belt, and finally she realized in a flash of embarrassment that she had left her blaster in the dorm aboard the _Ebon Hawk_. All she had on her, in fact, was the comlink Atton had given her and what remained of Master Vrook's lightsaber.

She drew on the Force and prepared to unleash it on the guard droid; just then, however, Ecksee bounded forward, grabbed Moonie by the blaster mounts with two of its pincers, and dragged the other droid aside. Still bleeping and screeching their various threats and accusations, they slammed into the far wall and jerked this way and that as their repulsorlifts tried to override each other. The guard droid's twin blasters went off, spitting red bolts that gouged black spirals into the floor and wall.

Deciding to let the droids sort out their differences, Kaevee streaked into the cargo bay, where she found two plasteel drums and two of the larger, wheeled crates. At once she was overcome with relief and disgust; the former because there wasn't much cargo left, and the latter because she was still risking her life for it. After clicking out the wheels of one of the crates, it was a simple matter with the Force to set the two drums atop it. She hesitated, looking at the last crate—but no, it was going to be tricky enough getting the stack she had down the hall. Either she'd make two trips or, more likely, Atton would have to forgive her for missing one.

The duel of the droids still raged out in the hall. Moonie's repulsorlift seemed to be stronger than Ecksee's, but the probe droid was smaller and more flexible, and as they slammed against bulkhead after bulkhead, it twisted about to minimize its own impact. Wary of stray laser blasts, Kaevee got her crate out of the cargo hold and shoved it as hard as she could down the middle of the hallway, hunching over as low as possible and hoping the plasteel drums wouldn't fall off.

* * *

Given that his ship was a sitting duck, Atton was thankful that he at least had the larger freighter to provide some cover and soak up the pirate ship's ion cannon fire. True to his word, he was doing a fine job of keeping the KT-400 at bay, even as he kept having to climb back and forth between the _Ebon Hawk_'s turret stations. Both freighters' shields had only sustained minor damage. The only risk was that the pirates might get fed up with shooting to disable and bring their other weapons online.

Or at least, it _was_ the only risk until the proximity alarm buzzed again, and the sensor readout showed the unwelcomely familiar design of a certain compact scout flyer, coming in fast to port from below.

"About time you showed up, schutta," Atton muttered as he swung the turret around. But already the Sith vessel was hammering the _Ebon Hawk_ with a rapid stream of scarlet laser fire. By the time he started to get a bead on the _Celestus_, it was already spinning off, its laser cannons stabbing into the shields over the _Sharp Turn_'s engine section. None of Atton's shots came close, and his target was quickly out of sight. He knew it would only be a few more seconds until it whipped back around again.

Before he could unseat himself and head to the other turret, the KT-400 showed itself again, its ion cannons cutting through the dark, and he traded bolts with the pirates again.

Both the pirate vessel and the Sith one strafed them again and again. Atton finally got a good hit on the _Celestus_' shields right over the main stabilizers and thumped his chair's armrest in triumph. Just one or two more like that, and the scout ship would be space debris.

But its pilot was smart and seemed determined not to give Atton a shot like that again; instead, the scout flyer kept to the other side of the _Sharp Turn_ and started blasting away at its belly with enthusiasm. The pirates seemed similarly stand-offish and were taking their time circling about between their strafing runs. Their shields had taken a beating. So had the _Hawk_'s.

Atton pulled up a scan of the _Sharp Turn_, and as he noted the scattershot of fresh black marks on her hull, he picked up on the Sith's tactic: unlike the pirates, they had no interest in taking prisoners or loot, so they'd have no problem if the larger freighter exploded and took the _Ebon Hawk_ with it.

He rubbed his sweaty brow against his sleeve, then checked the radar. The KT-400 was finally coming around again, aiming for the _Hawk_'s belly. "Oh, come on," he griped. "Why don't you shoot at the new guys for a change? What kinda pirates are you?"

They were running out of time. With one hand he reached for the console and keyed in the frequency for Kaevee's comlink.

* * *

There was a mechanical wail of outrage from Moonie as Kaevee passed the brawling droids. The Padawan jumped as a salvo of lasers flashed through the corridor and ripped into the floor not a few feet away from her and the supposedly precious cargo. Her eyes watering against the smoke, she shifted to the side of the crate as it rolled along. Meanwhile, Ecksee continued to wrestle with the guard droid, trying unsuccessfully to wrench it around so it would face back into the cargo hold. The wild potshots continued.

As the crate slowed farther down the hall, Kaevee took cover behind it and used the Force to give it a good pull, rather than continuing to push it and risk getting shot in the back. Cole's ship was still taking fire, and the overhead lights were flickering constantly by the time she was halfway to the air lock.

Just then she heard Atton's static-tinged voice coming from her pocket. "Hey, kid! Kaevee, you there?"

She pulled the comlink out and shouted, "Yes, we're getting the cargo!"

"What's taking you so long? Is— Are those blaster shots? Are you all right?"

"No, I'm not all right! The droid's shooting at us! How are you?!"

"Not good," Atton replied, inexplicably sounding just a bit more conversational now. "We've got more company out here. I can't fight them both off at once. Finish what you're doing, and comm me as soon as you're back on the _Hawk_!"

One of Moonie's shots grazed the side of the crate with a molten hiss. "Fine!" Kaevee yelped and put the comlink away. Out the corner of her eye, she caught sight of Foreman, plodding steadily along toward the cargo holds, hugging the wall opposite Kaevee. Two blasts struck the floor less than a meter away, but the droid paid them no heed.

"MOONIE!" roared the voice of Cole Terrick. "What the hell's going on?!"

Kaevee glanced around, unable to see anyone present but the droids, but the Force whispered a silent warning as she looked over her shoulder. Settling her eyes on an open doorway in the wall to her left, she shouted back, "Your droid's attacking us! Make it stop!"

As if to support her point, one of Moonie's stray blaster bolts blew a flaming chunk from the corner of the doorway; a mere fraction of a second later Cole himself bounded through it with a blaster in hand and eyes full of alarm.

Feeling in a split-second intuition that the spacer was going to fire, and not knowing what he meant to fire at, Kaevee put out a hand, and the Force blew Cole off his feet, slamming him flat on his back several meters away and sending his blaster skidding across the floor. Instantly she regretted it, fearing he was hurt, but as she got the container moving again, he rolled himself over and looked up, his eyes wilder than before.

* * *

Atton was just about to switch back over to the dorsal turret when he caught sight of the _Celestus_ as it zipped into view from behind the _Sharp Turn_'s engine deck. _Suddenly not so shy anymore_, he thought, lining up a shot.

The rim of Atton's targeting visor had collected a fair amount of sweat, forming a sticky line across his forehead. And as if the failing shield grid wasn't bad enough, both turrets only had enough power left for a couple more shots. He'd have to make them count.

Yet another alarm shrieked at him from the console, followed by a blinking message on his visor's heads-up display: Incoming Missile! At the same time, a second red targeting triangle appeared and separated itself from the _Celestus_. Atton spent a heartbeat watching as the triangle grew in scope very, very quickly, then twitched the aiming yoke and fired.

He sort of hit it.

The fact that there was a visible flash as his turbolaser bolt grazed the missile would seem in hindsight to suggest that the projectile had its own deflector shield. In any case, though, instead of exploding outright, it was knocked off-course—ricocheting, as it just so happened, toward the _Sharp Turn_'s belly. Atton watched in dreadful awe as it speared into the hull at the far end of the engine deck and erupted in a burst of superheated gas, and the _Ebon Hawk_ quaked around him until he thought his skull would shake itself apart.

When it subsided, Atton stared at the blackened cavity that now marred the other ship. "Whoops."

* * *

Cole dropped to his knees as another pair of crimson bolts flashed overhead. Waving his arms crazily, he screamed, "Moonie, stop it! _STOP FIRING—_" But his words were swallowed up by a rancorous roar as something big exploded down in the belly of the ship. The floor bucked, nearly costing Kaevee her footing and jostling the plasteel drums on their perch, while Cole pitched forward onto his face. The regular lights failed completely, triggering emergency ones which cast the corridor in a weaker yellow glare. An entire chorus of new alarms broke out.

Somehow Ecksee had finally lost its grip on Moonie, and the guard droid was approaching fast, its nemesis pursuing some meters behind. Kaevee ducked as two lasers slammed into the crate, jostling the plasteel drums atop it.

"MOONIE, EMERGENCY SHUTDOWN!" Cole bellowed, scrambling to his feet. Instantly the guard droid beeped, its steaming weapon ports clicked, and it froze in midair, its photoreceptors dim. With a triumphant crackle, Ecksee jabbed the deactivated machine with one pincer, then broke off and hovered back toward the cargo bay.

Something else exploded inside the ship, closer this time, causing a burst of sparks and white smoke to vomit from a nearby doorway. Cursing, Cole ran to a screen on the wall, where he called up a damage readout of the _Sharp Turn_: a green wireframe splattered with green, yellow, and red. The sections below the stern part of the ship, where the engines and most of the freighter's critical components were housed, was almost completely red. "Damn it all," the spacer cried, "capacitors, stabilizers—not the hyperdrive too!"

Hoping they had at least a few more minutes left, Kaevee focused on her own task and passed Cole by. A few Force pushes to the wheeled crate later, she reached the air lock and wrestled the containers over the threshold. She decided to roll them into the garage and leave them there rather than secure them in the cargo hold. Back aboard the familiar ship, she remembered her annoyance with Atton for expecting her to risk her life for a few containers of random supplies. Not to mention, he was endangering their whole mission, risking them all getting captured or destroyed by pirates…

Speaking of the pirates, how good a job was Atton doing at fending them off, anyway? And since when were they trying to blow everyone up? Was that what pirates did?

She spent a few seconds puzzling over this, but was snapped out of it by the clattering sound of Ecksee heaving the last cargo container through the air lock. Seeing her handiwork, the droid rolled it without ceremony into the garage, where it knocked against a small bench, spilling a collection of computer parts onto the floor.

Kaevee thanked the droid and whipped out her comlink. "Atton, we've got the cargo aboard! You'd better get us out of here!" She cast a glance out the air lock to see Cole Terrick sprinting toward her from far down the corridor, sparks and smoke seemingly following at his heels.

Hearing footsteps in the main hold, she ran over and stopped short of colliding with Atton as he crossed the room, heading for the front of the ship. "Get back there and shut the air lock, kid!" he ordered. "It'll only be a minute or two before I can disengage the dock!"

"Okay—" Kaevee started, then a jolt went through her. "Wait, what about Cole?!"

Atton disappeared into the cockpit without answering.

The Padawan wheeled back toward the air lock, where she nearly slammed into Cole as she cleared the corner. "_Frack_, girl," the spacer wheezed as he shoved her back a step. Then he spun around to see Foreman, who was walking as fast as he could to join them on the _Ebon Hawk_. Behind the droid, black smoke and gusts of flame belched from side doors and ducts. "Captain," he called in a ridiculously placid voice. "The _Sharp Turn_'s engines are about to go critical! We must evacuate at once!"

"I _know,_ Fore, just hurry the hell up! We've gotta— We— Wait a minute!" Cole leaned over past Kaevee in order to glance into the _Hawk_'s main hold, his expression morphing into new phases of recognition and dismay. "Fore, the payment! Where's the credits?!"

The droid was just a stone's throw off now. "Secure in the cargo hold, captain, where you ordered me to—" He was cut short when the door to the _Sharp Turn_'s air lock antechamber slammed shut, either malfunctioning or else responding to some kind of automated emergency measure. Through the door's viewport, a panel could be seen exploding off the wall with a burst of sparks, knocking the droid out of sight.

"_NO!_ DAMMIT!" Cole rushed to the door, where he hammered at its controls. When they didn't respond, he pried the panel off the wall and started rummaging through the electronics behind it.

Kaevee tossed a panicked glance over her shoulder as though to look for help, but no one was there. Atton's voice came to her over her comlink again, but her hands had inexplicably started shaking, and she dropped the device when she pulled it out to answer. Frustrated, she ran up behind Cole. "What do you think you're doing?!"

"My money's in the cargo hold," he said as he ripped wires out of the exposed panel. His voice was wheezing, but otherwise eerily calm. "There might still be time to get it out."

She put a hand on his shoulder and shook him. "Have you lost your mind?! It's only credits!"

The Force warned Kaevee too late before the spacer whipped around and grabbed her by the lapels of her robe, but even as he shook her, she was too stunned to fight him. His face had taken on an absolutely hellish color; she almost thought it was burning off his skull. "If I lose those credits, I DON'T HAVE _ANYTHING_, THANKS TO _YOU PEOPLE!_ Now GET THE HELL OFF ME!" With the last two words he sent her reeling across the air lock chamber with a shove.

The Padawan caught herself on the far wall as Cole went back to meddling uselessly with the door. Beyond it, the main corridor of the _Sharp Turn_ shuddered with flame, and a constant, rising roar came through the metal plates and bulkheads that surrounded them. With wobbling knees, Kaevee braced herself against the wall and watched him, aghast.

She wasn't angry with him—but then, even as she stared, she wasn't seeing him. She was a girl on Dantooine again, withering as a man screamed at her and buried her with guilt, and dying inside as she watched Shen burn. _It's your fault. You were supposed to protect us. You were supposed to save us._

Distantly, she felt her chest about to break open. Just when she thought it would, however, something seemed to snap behind her eyes, and in an instant she found herself wrenched back into the present. The memories slid from her mind like a fast-fading nightmare, and in their place, strength and light poured in—light from outside, somehow. With her legs steady again, she took a step away from the wall and looked about, suddenly alert. She could have sworn someone had just touched her shoulder, and for some reason she expected to find Atris nearby, but there was no one to be seen…

Then the Force nudged her and brought her attention back to where it belonged: right in front of her.

"I am a Jedi, the Force is with me…" Shaking herself, the Padawan raised a hand and picked Cole up from across the room. Still engrossed in the mess of wires he had yanked from the wall, the spacer cried out in wordless alarm as his feet left the floor. Kaevee swept her arm back, and the Force flung him clear across the air lock chamber, over the threshold, and into the _Ebon Hawk_'s garage, where he landed in a heap between the cargo containers. Stumbling after him, Kaevee threw herself at the air lock controls and, mercifully, remembered the proper sequence. The huge door hissed and growled and rumbled its way shut.

She snatched her comlink off the floor. "I did it, Atton!"

"Great, now get the hell up here!"

She paused, watching Cole as he rolled over in the garage, a tuft of torn wires still clutched in one fist. Satisfied that he at least wasn't dead, she raced to the cockpit and took the co-pilot seat.

Atton was pounding at the controls like an insane percussionist. "Strap yourself in. Disengaging magnetic lock… and… _Thrusters!_" He threw a lever, and the two were half-crushed against their seat straps as the _Ebon Hawk_ shot backward, away from the _Sharp Turn_. Seconds later, the trailing yellow spear of a concussion missile struck the larger freighter right where they had been docked, and the top section of its primary hull disappeared behind a ball of golden flame.

Atton made a hand gesture at the viewport that Kaevee did not recognize. "_Hah!_ Shouldn't'a dumb-fired it, schutta!" he crowed before switching to primary engines and rocketing forward again, swerving past the maimed freighter. As he did so, a salvo from the pirates' transport struck the _Ebon Hawk_ from above, rattling the ceiling.

He looked at a display as they sped away from the sight of the skirmish. "Shields are critical. Bring up the navicomp and tell it to calculate an emergency escape vector."

As Kaevee typed at her console, she couldn't help but notice that they were flying in a huge loop that would bring them back toward the other vessels. "It's going…," she said uncertainly. "Um, Atton, what are you doing?"

The pilot glanced at her with a smile so wide that it startled her. "This baby's still got a little fight left in her. If we can blow those pirates or the Sith back to hell on our way out, that'll make my day."

Kaevee feverishly brought up her sensor readout. "The _Sith_ are here?!"

"The ones that've been following us, yeah. They're in the scout flyer." The _Hawk_ had come about by then. The _Sharp Turn_ drifted in the center of the starfield. Tiny in the distance, its half-gutted aft section seemed to glitter as secondary explosions rippled through its engines and reactor system. Atton's eyes were fixed on his targeting computer, where he could see a sleek, mean-looking vessel racing their way, pursued by the KT-400 transport and narrowly avoiding the energy bolts being sprayed after it.

"Atton, are you sure this is such a good—" Kaevee dug her fingernails into the seat as Atton rolled the _Hawk_ one way, then another, its side-mounted cannons blazing, and in the blink of an eye both their targets were behind them.

"Dammit, I _hit_ it!" Atton whined after a glance at his radar. "I _know_ I hit it…" As Kaevee turned to give him a ghastly look, she was startled to see Cole Terrick slouching in the cockpit doorway, staring ashen-faced out the viewport. Hearing her gasp, Atton spared a look over his shoulder, saw the new passenger, and went back to his controls without batting an eye.

He ran a few evasive maneuvers while waiting for the navicomputer to finish its work; during one of these, they caught sight of the _Sharp Turn_ seconds before its engines finally exploded, as the droid Foreman had predicted. An eye-dazzling sphere of light vaporized the entire back section of the hull and shredded the larger cargo module into a million glowing specks of superheated matter. Kaevee was struck by the sight—somehow it seemed almost beautiful in its own way, but then it was gone, its heat and light quenched in the blink of an eye by hard, relentless vacuum.

As they left the debris field behind, the Padawan remembered herself and a lump formed in her throat. She looked back at Cole again, who was a statue of dull anguish.

The proximity alarm drew her attention back to the scanners. "More ships incoming, from Ord Lonesome's orbit. Eight starfighters and two… I dunno _what_ those are, some kind of frigate?"

Atton leaned over to look at her screen. "Hah! About time the authorities showed up. Those are picket cruisers—fast, and they've got strong tractor beams. We'd best be outta here, let our friends chat with them. Coordinates set?"

Kaevee switched to the navicomputer display. "Yes!"

"That's what I like to hear," Atton said, then, under his breath, "Time to run… again."

Seconds later there were butterflies in Kaevee's stomach as the stars warped into lines, and they left Ord Lonesome's system far behind—for the last time, she hoped. The feeling passed, and as she unstrapped herself, she glanced back yet again to see that Cole had left the cockpit.


	12. The Curse of the Ebon Hawk

With the _Ebon Hawk_ safely away and Kaevee's heart slowing to its normal cadence, the Padawan was able to notice, with no little confusion, that Atton seemed to be in a really good mood all of a sudden.

"We lost deflectors," he chuckled, "but they didn't put a scratch on the hull. Not a _scratch._ I had a hell of a time, manning both turrets at once. Bet you and Ecksee didn't have half as much fun."

"_Fun?_" She stared at him incredulously, incensed that he had enjoyed himself, while she had almost gotten blasted by Cole Terrick's sentry droid or blown up with the _Sharp Turn_—and again, just so they could save four stupid containers.

The pilot just shook his head, and they went through the post-jump routine in silence. But his smile didn't go away until they returned to the main hold and found Cole seated at the dining table, his fingers drumming spastically against its surface. He looked up quickly as they came in, and Kaevee instinctively stepped to the side.

The spacer's voice was a dry, colorless monotone, but Kaevee could sense the rage smoldering inside him. "Those pirates were the same people you ran into in the spaceport. Weren't they?"

Atton had paused in the doorway, eying Cole as though he was somewhat puzzled and surprised to find him aboard the _Ebon Hawk_. "Um… Yeah, I'm pretty sure."

"And that other ship was a Sith one. I heard you say that."

"Yep."

"_Sharp Turn_'s gone. With everything I had. My money. Droids. Goods for my next clients. Everything."

"We're sorry," Kaevee put in, but it sounded hollow even to her. She was burned out; it was too soon after the crisis to process everything that had happened, and her own feelings about Cole's presence felt distant and numb. She was, like Atton seemed to be, simply perplexed.

Cole's apathetic expression started to thaw, beginning with a spasm that made his eye twitch. "Sorry," he repeated. "Yeah. Yeah, I'm sure _you're_ sorry, you— Just whatever the hell you are, but you're not in charge of this operation. How about your pilot? I'm sure he's _real_ sorry, I can just tell."

The pilot in question stepped into the room with a sigh. "Telling you I'm sorry's not gonna do you much good, friend."

"You sure got that right, _friend._" Cole got up, shaking and fidgeting. One of his hands kept grabbing and picking at the empty holster on his belt. "We had a deal, y'know, a fair deal between you and me. Now, I kept up my end of it. Got every last bit of the goods you asked for, in a reasonable time, for a reasonable price. It was just business, and I like doing business right, y'know, as opposed to doing it wrong."

"I know how that goes," Atton remarked dully, and Kaevee winced. Obviously he was tired, but was he even _trying_ to help the situation?

Cole jabbed a finger in the air between them. But in spite of his spastic body language, his voice remained alarmingly low. "Actually no, I don't fraggin' think you do. If you'll recall, I told you right at the beginning I don't do business with just anyone. I have some standards, y'know, for safety reasons, so things'll go smoothly. I told you I want no authorities involved, no organized crime, nobody _after_ you, and I didn't need to know anything else. And you told me, you _promised_ me everything was good."

"I did say that, yeah."

The spacer nodded his head in a series of rapid-fire jerks, as though he were trying to work it loose. "Yeah. Yeah, yeah, you said that, you sure did, Atton, you…" An ugly sound like a laugh hissed from his teeth. "You wanna know something? Right at the _beginning_ I had a funny feeling about you—"

"You ought to trust those feelings."

"I'm talking, all right? I'm saying I had a funny feeling, but I brushed it off. I'm just a little hard up right now, y'know, debts to pay off, stuff like that. I figured it was nothing, I was just being paranoid, so we made the deal and I got to work." Cole swallowed and made a vague gesture at Kaevee. "Then we met up in Lossway, and I knew you were trouble, I could just _tell_ that something was wrong. Oh, but I had to brush it off again. Told myself I needed the credits, no need to get jumpy. There's nothing weird going on, I can trust this Atton guy—he's got an _honest face._"

The longer he went on, the less comfortable Kaevee felt, especially since Atton seemed intent on not dealing with the situation. She knew that it fell to her to try, then, since resolving conflicts was one of the things that Jedi did—especially Consulars, which was what she wanted to be one day. "Atton's not very good at telling the truth," she offered.

"You shut your mouth," the pilot snapped at her, showing emotion for the first time in the conversation.

"Well, truth is good," said Cole with false cheer. "So how about sharing some? What's the story here, is this a job for the Republic? Some private military? The Hutts?"

"Yeah, that's none of your business."

"My business?" Cole slammed a boot against the side of the holotable. "I haven't _got_ any business anymore, because in case you forgot, you BLEW IT UP! You feel like giving me an explanation, _something_ for my trouble?!"

Atton took another step forward and crossed his arms. "All right, first of all, I've been in your line of work myself, and it's risky this far from the Core, no matter who you're working with. Second, those pirates and the Sith blew it up, not me—"

"Why? _Why_ did they blow it up? What are they after you for? What in space did you murglaks get me mixed up in?!"

Kaevee decided to try again, hoping the truth would help calm things down. "We're on a mission to stop the Sith from invading and taking over the galaxy," she said severely. "That's what you're mixed up in."

Cole gave out a nasty chuckle and hung his head for a moment. "Oh, good for you! And how's that working out for you?"

"Well, we—"

"Look, we're not getting into this," Atton broke in, suddenly taking control of the conversation. "Cole, we've got some free bunks in the starboard dorm. You can have one of them until we find someplace to drop you off. You got any preference as to where?"

"Preference? I didn't save anything except what I'm _wearing._ I might as well take a walk out the air lock."

"Kaevee can help you with that, if you don't think of anyplace else."

Rather than commenting on that, Kaevee pressed a hand to her eyes and counted to three. "Don't you have any options at all?" she said finally. "Any… I dunno, spare assets somewhere?"

Cole snapped his fingers, and his eyes lit up in mock recognition. "Oh, _yes_, actually. In fact, I _completely forgot_ that I have a spare ship, spare droids, and spare cargo for all my clients back at my private retreat on _Empress Teta…_ Are you _deaf?_"

The Padawan threw up her hands. "I'm only trying to help. Listen—"

"Help?!"

"_Listen_, what if you just joined our crew for a little while? You could help us with the ship, and we'd give you a place to stay for a while in return… Maybe?" She trailed off, looking doubtfully at Atton. Cole took a step his way.

The pilot looked him up and down, and shrugged. "Not with the attitude he's got now. We'll see how he feels in a day or two."

Cole was within arm's reach of him now. His face had suddenly gone blank again, but he oozed malice so palpably that Kaevee didn't need the Force to sense it. None of this was working. "To hell with, you, Atton," he said.

Atton rubbed one of his eyes. "Look, Cole, I've had a really long day—"

"Oh, yeah. Yeah, me too."

"—and there's not much else I can do for you. I guess the bottom line is, from now on you'll know better than to trust people."

The spacer started to turn away. "Yeah. Guess I will," he agreed mirthfully, before whirling back around and swinging a wild fist at Atton's head. Atton leaned back so that the blow missed him by a centimeter, then staggered him with a punch just over his right eye. Cole swayed on his feet for a moment, rubbing the spot, his teeth bared in a silent, anguished grimace.

Kaevee choked, shocked at how fast it had happened. Before she could say anything, Cole launched himself at the pilot with a roar, both hands reaching for his throat. Atton deftly caught him by the wrists, but was thrown off balance, and Cole kicked his legs out from under him. Both men fell against the edge of the dining table, knocking two chairs over as they crashed to the floor. They rolled back and forth, snarling and cursing as they pummeled each other.

Without thinking, Kaevee threw herself on top of them, meaning to pry them apart, only to be sucked into the maelstrom of violence. She was pitched back and forth, and they rolled around beneath or even on top of her, and it was all she could do to shield her face from their blows. She was tangled in a mess of arms and legs, unable to tell who was who, and tried in vain to shout over their threats and more primal utterances. At one point she caught a glimpse of X-C88 hovering on the far side of the holotable, gesticulating and shrieking enthusiastically.

Minutes later the room was still and quiet, except for wheezing and the occasional cough. Kaevee found herself lying prone on top of somebody, her cloak having somehow gotten twisted around her neck and one of her arms, and her hair fell in a sticky mass of tangles over her face, blinding her.

The body beneath her tossed about weakly; someplace too close to her, somebody was grunting miserably. It turned to a pained groan as she pushed herself up on her elbow. Clearing her eyes, she saw that the grunting was Cole Terrick, spitting out the end of a coil of her hair, his bruised face screwed up in outrage.

Embarrassed as she was repulsed, Kaevee pitched herself off of Cole, allowing him to roll away onto his belly. Looking up, he found himself face to face with a hexapedal insectoid with huge, glowing red eyes. It let out a threatening hiss, and Cole threw himself back with a hoarse cry, unwittingly landing himself next to Kaevee. Somewhere else in the room, Ecksee sputtered in electronic laughter.

As she calmed the laigrek down with the Force, telling it that the stranger was neither dangerous nor edible, Kaevee untangled her cloak and put an uncertain hand on Cole's shoulder. "It's all right…," she said between gasps. "It's all right… It's my pet."

Cole made a savage sound and jerked away, crawling over to the holotable to use it as support.

Sitting up against a nearby wall, Atton let out a dry laugh. "Kaevee…," he said. "Thought I told you… to leave that thing in the dorm."

"I did, I just… didn't lock the door."

"Those things… open doors?"

She shrugged. "Laigreks are smart."

There was an exhausted pause, and Ecksee left, having apparently lost interest in the proceedings.

"Just what the… What the hell kinda people are you?" Cole demanded in exasperation, watching as the laigrek clacked off down a corridor. When it was gone, his eyes wandered and came to rest on the frame of an old woman clad in a gray cloak and hood, who had taken a seat at the dining table without anyone noticing. "Now who the frack is _this_?"

Atton gestured lazily to the old woman, then to the spacer. "Cole, Atris. Atris, Cole."

Despite the fact that Atris scarcely moved, her frown seemed to bear down on the new passenger with a palpable aura. "I would advise you to keep a short leash on your temper from now on, Cole Terrick," she said, sounding quite like a scolding schoolteacher. For effect, she tapped the end of her cane against one of the chairs that had been knocked over. "This ship is confining, and sound carries far; I will be most displeased if your roughhousing disturbs my meditation again."

Cole stared at her in stupefied dismay which seemed, surprisingly, to border on fear. The look on his face made Kaevee think of a Dantooine farmer opening his front door to find a graul looming right outside. Cole stammered, "I— What… Who the…"

"We happen to be the galaxy's last hope…" Atris' voice suddenly brightened. "And now, so are you, I think. The Force seems to have brought us together. Do you think so, Kaevee?"

Kaevee could not imagine anything good coming from Cole Terrick's presence aboard the _Ebon Hawk_, let alone the will of the Force being involved, but she shrugged and said, "I suppose so."

Cole shook his head weakly. A glaze seemed to come over his eyes. "Oh hell, kid. You were serious, weren't you? You people are… If you were Sith, I'd be dead already. So you're damn _Jedi._"

"No," Kaevee corrected. "_I'm_ a Jedi. She _was_ a Jedi, and Atton's just a guy with a lightsaber."

"You are not alone in your misfortunes, Cole Terrick," Atris put in musingly. "All of us are beings who have lost something, but if you join us…" A smile crept into her voice. "…perhaps you will find something new."

The spacer put his head in his hands and croaked with a voice that was holding back tears. "Give me a _drink_. Please… just give me something to drink."

Atton cleared his throat. "You got us some Corellian ale. Remember? Somewhere in the cargo hold. One of the plasteel drums. Help yourself if you want… but leave some for me."

Without another word, Cole gripped the rim of the holotable, pulled himself to his feet, and limped off in the direction of the cargo hold.


	13. Ventures

With the "meeting" in the main hold finished up, Atton moseyed over to his chair in the cockpit, where he took a short nap to let the new bruises sink in. When that was done, he went to the cargo hold, which was now crowded with plasteel containers. The drum of Corellian ale was open, and one bottle was missing. He stuck a hand in, then stopped himself and checked his wrist chrono. They had six hours until the next sleep cycle.

_Work before pleasure_, he thought as he shut the container with a sigh. Taking out his datapad, he pulled up the manifest and had a look through it. The lion's share of the cargo was replacement parts for the _Ebon Hawk_. Aside from that there was foodstuff, survival gear, and a modest stockpile of weaponry—mostly just blasters and ammunition. Atton was not satisfied with the latter, but Cole wasn't an arms dealer, so that had to come second to keeping the ship flying.

After deciding more or less randomly what system he would start with first, Atton detached a wheeled fold-out cart from the wall and went down the rows of containers, fishing out the parts he would need. When he was done, he'd round up Kaevee and the droids and put them to work. As he went along, random parts of his body occasionally gave little pangs, just in case he was starting to forget his scuffle with Cole, or in any way getting too comfortable with being alive.

From the doorway there came footsteps and clacking, followed by a small chirp, then a low voice saying, "Hush."

Atton turned around. Kaevee stood rigidly at the cargo hold's entrance as her pet killer bug went nosing around among the containers, which formed a maze for a creature of its size.

_Plus two makes five, plus three makes six,_ he thought clinically. "Something up?"

"Cole's in my room. Sleeping, I think. I don't want him there."

"It's not your room, it's a dormitory. There's six beds in there. He probably doesn't want you in there, either." Atton paused. "Is he gonna be a problem?"

"He snores." When Atton didn't react to that, the girl rolled her eyes. "I'll be fine."

She stayed where she was, but Atton decided to let her sweat it out and went on collecting parts. It was a little early for him to start playing referee—assuming that was what the kid wanted from him. Two containers later he was distracted by the smell of a hint of ozone in the air, but looked down and saw what it was—one of the crates had a shallow line of blaster scorch across one side, and two pock marks on another.

Kaevee broke the silence. "His life's ruined because of us, you know."

"Yep." Atton didn't face her, but he felt her eyes raking him, as well as her Force sense probing against the pazaak game in his head.

"That's it," she said with fire in her voice. "That's what I don't understand. Why are you like this?"

Atton didn't mind if people disliked him, and he could usually understand the reasons why they did so. What he didn't get was why those same people also seemed to love talking to him—and not just that, but talking to him _about_ him. "Why am I like what?"

"You didn't warn him of the danger when you hired him. And now you didn't tell him you're sorry, you didn't give him an explanation…"

Atton finally stopped what he was doing and gave her a hard look. "You hated this guy since you first met, but _now_ you're going all Jedi empathy over him?"

The girl waved her hand in that dismissive way that Jedi loved to. "This isn't about me. You didn't even try to calm him down. He lost everything, and you don't even care."

"Kid, I've been flying all over the galaxy a long time, been around a lot of different people. Been through several wars. I've _seen_ things. Seen the rug get pulled out from under a lot of different people. It wasn't anyone else's job to give me a soft landing when it happened to me, so it's not _my_ job now."

She scowled as she came up to him. "Yes… I suppose _I_ found that out on Belsavis. You wouldn't have cared even if he'd died, would you? And he _would_ have, if not for me."

Atton was now slightly interested in the conversation. "How's that?"

Kaevee's glare turned aside from him as if she was looking into the past. "He'd just come aboard the _Ebon Hawk._ Then he tried to go back into _his_ ship to get the money you paid him with—when it was right about to explode. That's why it took me so long to shut the air lock, because he was trying to get through."

"And you convinced him not to?"

"No, he wouldn't listen to me. He was going to die for his stupid credits, so I just used the Force to throw him back onto the _Hawk_."

"So you saved somebody who wanted to die. That's very Jedi of you." Atton checked his datapad, then wheeled the cart over to yet another container. As he popped it open, the pest clacked into view from around the corner and stared at him. He tensed and pretended it wasn't there, then looked at the kid and found her staring off into space. "You all right?"

"Yeah," she said, suddenly pensive. "I just realized, I don't think I ever saved anyone's life before."

"Hm."

She crossed her arms. "Do you think he's going to stay with us?"

It didn't take Atton long to answer. "Yeah, probably."

"How come?"

"Mostly just a hunch. I know his type. Besides, the _Ebon Hawk_'s a cursed ship."

"What does _that_ mean?"

Atton continued his work, placid as ever, finding that the conversation was taking his mind off his various aches. "Life has a funny way of bringing misfits together, making messes, complicating things that should be simple. And for some reason it happens a lot around certain, specific people or places—they're like focal points of craziness. In this case it's a starship. The _Hawk_'s a trouble magnet. Get too close to one, you get stuck to it. And I think Cole's stuck too, now."

He left off, but the girl didn't say anything. Maybe he had a future as a lecturer. "The same thing happened to a lot of people before him—even before me. I guess you'd call it destiny or the will of the Force or something, but I think my term's more accurate. There's no spooky, mysterious, hidden purpose here, or anywhere else. It's just concentrated chaos."

"I don't believe that," Kaevee answered reflexively.

Atton was not stunned to hear this. "You'll learn."

"All right." The girl's tone changed to a terribly wooden attempt to sound casual. "How did you get stuck, then?"

"It was a long time ago."

"Okay, so what happened?"

He kicked lazily at the bug, causing it to back out of sight, then wheeled his cart over to the next container. "I've got work to do, Kaevee."

"I need to know more about you."

"Really? That's funny, 'cause I haven't so much as considered putting _you_ through an interrogation. Why don't you Jedi ever return the favor?"

Atton gauged the girl's reaction and found that he wasn't sure if she was going to slap him or collapse in on herself. "You listen to me, Atton. I joined you because you lied to me and said you were a Jedi. I _trusted_ you, and even though I…" Whatever she meant to say next, she swallowed it hard. "You still expect me to just do whatever you say. I'm trying to trust the Force that I'm doing the right thing, staying here. And I'm trying to trust _you_, but I don't know you. If you're not a Jedi, or a Sith, then what are you? There… There's no such _thing_ as a guy with a lightsaber."

He went rummaging through the container, waiting her out.

The girl spoke again, suddenly desperate and pleading, as though her anger had already burned itself out. "Tell me something and I'll leave you alone, I promise. Who taught you how to use the Force?" She bit her lip for a moment, thinking. "It was Meetra Surik, wasn't it?"

Atton wondered if the solution to his current predicament was just to give Kaevee a good slap of her own.

"That Sith who attacked us on Dantooine," she continued with some confidence. "She… she said Meetra _misses_ you. You _did_ know her. Was it back when she was a Jedi?"

Atton exhaled through clenched teeth. _It's not a bad deal,_ he told himself. _Just give her something, and she'll go away_. Apparently sensing his defeat, Kaevee sat down on a plasteel drum and crossed her legs.

"Meetra wasn't a Jedi," Atton said carefully, "not exactly. She was exiled by the Jedi Council for joining the Mandalorian Wars. But when I met her, she wasn't a Sith either." He gestured to the walls. "This was her ship… This trouble magnet. I got stuck to it six years ago when we ran into each other on a mining station at Peragus. You ever hear of Peragus?"

Kaevee shook her head.

"Ah, that's just as well. We blew it up right as we were leaving." He noticed she was giving him a weird look. "We didn't _mean_ to. The Sith were after us, and things got out of hand. Anyway, that's where I was, rotting in a force cage, alone, when Meetra showed up and let me out. Next thing I knew, I was pilot of this ship, and we were on this mission to find the last surviving Jedi Masters, what was left of the Council. Meetra wanted some answers from them, and she thought they could help her get the Sith off our backs. And yeah, she's the one who taught me all these Force tricks you're so fond of.

"Meantime, we were zipping all over the galaxy, and somehow we couldn't help but pick up more and more crewmembers everywhere we went. There was a Mandalorian, _four_ droids instead of two, a bounty hunter with a big mouth, this starry-eyed bookworm, a scheming old witch…" He paused to curse the last one under his breath. "Anyway, that's how I got stuck to the _Ebon Hawk_. Peragus."

The girl stared at him, completely engrossed, and there was something raw and wavering behind her eyes. "What happened then? Did you find the Jedi?"

_You're just a glutton for bad news._ "Yeah, we found 'em, all right. Except right at the end, Meetra just killed them all. All except Atris—Meetra gave her those wounds, but she got away by a fluke…" He tipped his head to the port, toward the old hag's haunt. "That's why I went looking for her. My best chance of getting any help was Jedi or ex-Jedi, and she's the only one who I knew might still be alive."

Kaevee's eyes sank to the floor, her face stained with gloom, and stayed like that for a long moment. Atton thought again about how improbable it was that their paths hadn't crossed on Dantooine those six years ago. And, not wanting to give her more fodder for questions—or for still more paralyzing misery—he kept that thought to himself.

Slowly, the girl looked up. Some hair had fallen over her eyes, but she left it there. "Meetra… Why did she kill the Jedi?"

The two looked at each other, and for the first time since they'd met on Dantooine, they seemed almost to have some sorrow in common. "I really don't know," Atton said. "I guess you'd say she fell to the dark side of the Force."

"You said she's an exile. That must be the reason. It was for revenge."

He shook his head slowly, sinking for a moment into the morass of questions and guesses and _maybe ifs_ that had been collecting inside him for six years. "I suppose that was part of it. But I don't know why she did what she did… and I don't think it really matters anymore," he said, starting to come back to himself.

"What did you do after that?"

But she was too late. Atton had remembered where he was, and he slammed himself shut. "I disappeared. Drifted, felt sorry for myself, drank—you know, the usual… All right, you came for a story and I told you one. Can I get back to work now?"

Kaevee looked startled and hopped to her feet. "Wait, there's something else I—"

"_Kaevee._"

Clearing her eyes, the girl gave him a frigid look and turned away, and Atton watched stone-faced as she and the laigrek disappeared out into the corridor. As he replayed the conversation in his head, it occurred to him that nobody ever would have gotten him talking so easily, had they tried a few years ago. So how had Kaevee done it? Was she just pitiful enough to get at him in spite of everything, or did he just not have the patience he once had?

Something he had said years ago came back to him as though echoing from the _Ebon Hawk_'s walls. _You know what? Not once have I asked you about the Mandalorian Wars. Not once._

What he'd told Kaevee didn't mean much. Still, compared to what he would have said back in the day, it was a lot. He pushed the whole matter off into a back corner of his mind and returned to his datapad.

* * *

The door opened, and the sterile light of the _Ebon Hawk_'s corridor cut through the darkness of the starboard dormitory, where Kaevee found Cole Terrick as she had before: slouched up against the far wall, tangled up in two blankets that he had pulled from the bunks. His head hung to one side, his mouth open. An empty glass bottle lay half-clutched in one limp hand. His jacket was crumpled up in a nearby corner of the room.

The spacer's only response to her presence—assuming he _was_ responding to her and not just the sudden light—was to pull one of the blankets over his head and lean into the corner, grumbling insensible gibberish. Kaevee stared for a moment, reliving her earlier disgust and wondering what new complications were about to enter her life as a consequence of saving his.

She shut the door again and supposed that if nothing else, getting to sleep was going to be even more of an ordeal than it already was, given that this starship still felt nothing like a home to her. Allowing the laigrek to wander off, she drifted into the garage and sat down atop the work bench. A moment later the probe droid came into the room, apparently passing through, and she called out to it. "Ecksee."

It paused and beeped a _What?_ at her.

"I forgot to before, but, uh, I think I should thank you. Back on the other ship, that droid might've blasted me if not for you. So thanks."

The machine dipped slightly to one side and shifted its dangling arms in a gesture that Kaevee had absolutely no idea how to interpret. Its twittling response was noncommittal. _I never get thanked around here_ seemed to be the gist of it.

Kaevee thought she could relate to that, but felt unsure about whether to offer sympathy. How personal was too personal when it came to droids? But as she hesitated, Ecksee floated off.

The Padawan looked around at the metal refuse which still littered the garage. Though she tried to distract herself, her thoughts kept returning to Atton and the frustrations that talking to him had stirred up—as though she didn't have enough to begin with. Belsavis had already reopened the wound of her memories surrounding the murder of Vrook Lamar and the other masters, but hearing the pilot talk about it opened that wound even wider. The conversation hadn't been for nothing; Kaevee had learned a few things about Atton. But she wasn't going to be as gullible as she had been in the past. She now knew to pay attention to what Atton _didn't_ say as much as what he did say.

Although he hadn't mentioned Dantooine or the three Jedi Masters by name, Kaevee suspected that that had been a calculated omission. At any rate, he had to have been talking about them—so it had been Meetra Surik who Kaevee was running from those six years ago, when she fled the Enclave for the second time. Had Atton been there with Surik later, when she killed Master Vrook and the others? Had he _helped_ her?

That question sent a terrible chill through Kaevee. She hugged herself, wondering how much she really wanted to learn about Atton Rand, and whether anything he told her would make him easier to trust. She hated being curious about him, hated thinking about him at all. But what else was there to do while she was trapped on the _Ebon Hawk?_ Sort through more junk? Dust off ports and cables? Tinker with more computers? No doubt he would give her more of that to do soon enough.

Unable to stand the silence and her own uninterrupted thoughts, she slid off the work bench and headed for the port dormitory. Kaevee didn't particularly want to talk to Atris—in fact, she had been avoiding her ever since Belsavis—but she needed some help to distract herself and to pass the time. Wherever it was that the _Ebon Hawk_ was going to take her next, she wanted to get there soon.

She found the dormitory door already open. Atris sat facing the far wall in a console chair that must have been taken from the communications room. Her cane was propped up against a nearby corner. Before Kaevee could announce herself or even enter the room, the old woman pivoted slowly around. "What troubles you, Kaevee?" she asked gently, as though they had already been in conversation for some time.

Kaevee went and sat down on one of the cots along the wall. "I'm bored. I need someone to talk to."

"I've found that meditation is a good way to pass the time."

Kaevee found that she could look at any part of Atris except the darkness of her hood, where that one eye was lurking. "I don't meditate much," she said. The truth was that she hadn't so much as tried to since Dantooine was attacked.

"I could help you learn how to again… It would do you some good. Your mind is noisy."

The Padawan frowned, and not just because it seemed that Atris had seen through her. "I thought you weren't a Jedi."

Atris drummed her fingers against the chair's armrest. "The Jedi did not invent meditation, nor were they first to discover that it strengthened one's connection to the Force. Their methods are inherited primarily from the Dai Bendu monks and the Followers of Palawa, and others. But they, too, were inheritors."

Kaevee bit her tongue, then said, "I'll be fine for now."

"As you wish. What shall we talk about, then?"

"Um…" Though Kaevee was a bit relieved to find the old woman less argumentative than she may have expected, that left her with the problem of finding something to carry the conversation. She floundered for a bit, running back over her memories of the past few days. There was no shortage of things to discuss, but she wanted something relatively innocuous; at the same time, though, she didn't want to die of boredom.

"I understand you handled things well with the cargo," said the former Jedi, taking the initiative. She made an uncertain gesture with the stump where her left hand had been. "I wish I could have offered more assistance, but I am not quite as spry as I once was."

Kaevee frowned again. "What assistance?"

"You do not remember? At the air lock?"

"You weren't at the…" Kaevee trailed off, and a slight shiver passed through her as she mentally rewound to their final moments in the Ord Lonesome system. She remembered Cole losing his mind and trying to force his way back onto the burning _Sharp Turn_, and the horrible moment when Kaevee's own memories of Dantooine had frozen her nerves and paralyzed her—and how she had inexplicably snapped out of it, felt herself strengthened, and had the strange thought that Atris was in the room with her.

Beneath the shadow that veiled her eyes, Atris' pale lips curled into an almost mischievous smile. "Yes, you see it now."

The Padawan's mouth hung ajar. "That was _you?_ How…?"

"Nothing is impossible with the Force, Kaevee—and it lives in me still, though my power is a fraction of what it once was. I suspected that danger would show itself at the rendezvous, so I centered myself and prepared. When you began to fall away from yourself, I sensed it and pulled you back, and for your weakness I gave some of my own strength."

Kaevee eyed her hands as she clasped them together in her lap, saying nothing. What Atris was describing astonished her at first—to strengthen another's mind and connection to the Force without even being present. But as she thought about it, she realized that it sounded like Bastila Shan's gift, only on a smaller scale.

"It is related to Battle Meditation, yes," Atris remarked. Her smile was long gone.

Kaevee looked up. "You're reading my thoughts, aren't you?"

"Yes. My sensing powers are the among the few that have not atrophied. Besides that, your thoughts are easy to read—just as they were during the crisis, when a Force user naturally raises what defenses she has." The old woman leaned forward a little. "If I can affect your mind and your connection to the Force to help you, without your sanction, another could do the same, but to harm you. You must learn to fortify yourself against such intrusions."

The Padawan pried her hands apart, brought one up to brush at her hair. She could see where this was going. "I'm sure I'll be able to learn that from a Jedi."

"Indeed you will, should we encounter any. But suppose you continue to wait for one, and in the meantime the Sith confront us?"

"We'll be all right, just like we've been up to now." Even as Kaevee said this, she felt a niggling curiosity about what else Atris might have to say about the Force. But Kaevee had principles to stand on, and she clamped down hard on that thought. "I want to follow the Jedi path."

The old woman's annoyance finally broke the surface. "So you insist on learning nothing from me?"

Kaevee didn't really want to start an argument, but she had to defend herself now. "I want to learn what my _Master_ would have taught me."

Atris' dark blue eye showed itself. "What was his name, Kaevee?"

Somewhat blindsided, Kaevee took a moment to answer. "Master Emon… Corsio."

The old woman was silent for a moment. "I never knew him," she murmured absently. "What was he like?"

"He… He was Human, kind of older. Not old like Master Vrook or Vandar, I mean, but still old. He was a Consular. I was gonna be a Consular too…" Kaevee trailed off. The little ember-glow of anger inside her cooled as she cast her mind back before Belsavis, before the pyre on Dantooine, before the turbolasers and burning fields. Everything she had listed was superficial, but it was hard to remember more. She concentrated so hard that it almost hurt, and even then so little of Emon was left. She knew that he had been a tall man with a big forehead, very short hair, and deep brown eyes… But it was all so distant, so muted, that it was as if she only _knew_ this, instead of truly _remembering_ it.

The things that had made her Master who he was—the way he had talked, his interests and mannerisms, the shades of his personality—most of it was just gone, swallowed up by the fire and rubble like Emon's body had been. There were only a few particulars left, like how he would look at her in that way that no one else ever had or ever could, and say, _Trust the Force, Kaevee._ And when he told her to, she would.

"He was very gentle," she said at last.

Atris waited for her to go on. When she didn't, the old woman probed. "Did he teach you much? Teach you the Jedi Code?"

Still half in what was left of the past, Kaevee only nodded. Her hands were back in her lap.

"Can you… recite it for me?"

The question sounded innocent, almost casual, but Kaevee could see what was behind it. Her hands clenched slightly. "No. I can't remember." She looked tentatively at the old woman, waiting to hear some barbed dismissal, like, _It's well that you have forgotten._

But Atris only sat back and bowed her head, seemingly deep in thought. Kaevee raked at her hair again, feeling an urge to get up and leave. But she was trying to kill time, and they had only been talking a few minutes. Making no attempt to conceal her discomfort, she blurted, "I need to ask you something."

"Oh?"

Kaevee said the first thing she could think of. "It's about Atton, he… I need to know more about him. He told me it was… That Meetra Surik is the one who taught him to use the Force, and he used to fly this ship for her. Right before she killed the last of the Council, I guess. But that's all he'd tell me."

The former Jedi studied Kaevee for a moment. "You don't trust him."

"He lied to me before. And to Cole. I'm surprised _you_ trust him."

Atris nodded. "You weren't wrong when you said he isn't good at telling the truth. And you're right to be angry for how he treated you. But even so, I suggest you respect his privacy."

Kaevee wasn't sure why, but something felt odd about being told that she _should_ be angry about something. She brushed it aside. "This isn't about privacy. Atton has something dark about him, something dangerous that he's hiding. And if he won't tell me—"

"Listen to me," the old woman broke in, suddenly back in her stern teacher's voice. "If Atton wishes to keep his history to himself, then it is not for me to go gossiping about him merely to satisfy your idle curiosity."

"Atton owes me the truth, and so do you. Why are you _covering_ for him?"

"What makes you think _I_ have his confidence, that I know anything about him to hide or reveal?"

"I don't believe you," Kaevee pressed. "There's no way you'd have joined him in the first place if you didn't.

"There is no need to flatter me so," Atris scoffed. "And besides, neither of us have pried into _your_ past. Why are you more interested in correcting Atton's faults than in learning about the Force?"

"We're not talking about me right now, and there's nothing _to_ me. You already know about my past."

The old woman shook her head gravely. "No, we do not, and we need not, unless _you_ decide otherwise. I tell you, _leave him be_. Give him the same courtesy he gives you."

Kaevee sat back, realizing she was getting nowhere. "That's not very much."

"It will have to suffice." Atris sighed, clearly just as weary of the topic. "We are on the same side. I know enough of him that I can promise you, he is only a danger to our enemies…" Again there was that strange smile. "…and perhaps himself. He has his regrets and his demons; in the meantime, you and I have our own. And a curious, careless person who tries to drag them out into the light will do more harm than good. Can you trust him for _my_ sake, at least?"

Once again Kaevee found herself facing a choice that wasn't a choice at all. Atton was right in a way when he'd talked about trouble magnets. Like him, Kaevee was stuck to the _Ebon Hawk_. But she didn't believe in trouble magnets; she believed in the will of the Force… or did she? Where was the will of the Force here, now, when the only Jedi Master left in the galaxy refused to teach her the ways of the Jedi? But no. She refused to believe that Atris was the only one left. There was another. There had to be.

In the meantime she could see, begrudgingly, that the old woman was right about Atton. Not so much that he deserved to get away with his lies and duplicity, but whatever his secrets were, they weren't worth the trouble or the risk of digging up. Kaevee had just tried that, and more or less regretted her efforts. She would just have to go on with the mission and do her best to not think about him.

And to be patient. Emon would've wanted that.

"I'll try," she said.


	14. Lessons

To Atton's undying relief, everyone left him alone after his interrogation in the cargo hold. He spent a few hours setting things up for repairs, rewarded himself with some Corellian ale, and had a good, long sleep.

The first thing he did the next morning was clean the synthesizer, then refill it with the fresh rawmat packets that the cargo had included. It was a critically important task. Protatoes and synthsteak may have only _resembled_ actual food, but they were healthier and better-tasting than the gray stew-sludge that the machine had been coughing up for the past month.

Not long after sitting down for breakfast, he heard the hiss of the refresher door opening, followed by muffled voices. The first was recognizably Kaevee's. The other was dry and slurred.

"You _stink._"

"Thso _d'you_."

As the refresher door closed again, Cole Terrick shambled into view. He looked out into the main hold with glassy eyes, then swung round and disappeared into the corridor toward the starboard dormitory.

When Kaevee came out a few minutes later, Atton stood up and waved her over. "G'morning. Hey, look at this." He went to the holotable, pulled up a map of the eastern Outer Rim, and highlighted a system in the Albanin sector off the Triellus Route, southeast of Hutt Space. "That's where we're going."

The girl came over, her eyes on the map. "Daluuj," she read blankly. "What's there?"

"Nobody and nothing except mud—and an unmanned hyperwave relay station. It was built by the Republic during the Mandalorian Wars to bounce military signals from the Rim all the way back to the Core. Intel and recon data, mostly. We're gonna sneak in and borrow that relay. This is the next step toward warning the Republic, and toward Malachor V."

"How?"

He looked at her. "Remember how I told you we need to talk to the right person, the right way?"

The girl nodded. No doubt she also remembered how he'd used the same conversation to string her along about him being a Jedi, but if so, she kept it off her face.

"Well, I have the right person in mind," Atton went on, "the one guy in the Republic I can think of who might listen to me. A real big shot war hero, Admiral Sargo Opelle. Once I slice into that relay, I can use it to send a message pretty much right to him and his staff, cut through the red tape."

"Why is he going to listen to you?" Kaevee asked.

"Aside from my famous eloquence," Atton explained, "I'm gonna send him proof as well as a message. First there's maps, schematics of the Sith facilities on Malachor, stuff that'll prove it's a target for the Republic—as well as a plan I have for how best to deal with it. Second, a map of the Sith Empire in the Unknown Regions, including the hyperroute leading from it to Malachor. I've got some other odds and ends, but those are the main things. So hopefully he'll at least believe I'm not crazy when I tell him about a Sith invasion, and…" He grinned lopsidedly. "We'll see where it goes from there."

As the kid held his gaze, he waited for an expression of doubt or disbelief, or a demand for more details. Instead, she went back to studying the map. "Daluuj isn't far from Ord Lonesome," she noted. "Shouldn't we be there… today?"

"If we took a direct route, we would be. But I've plotted a couple random hyper-jumps around the sector first. Aside from slowing down anyone who might be on our tail, we'll need that time to work on the _Hawk_. Not to mention give our new passenger a chance to jump ship."

"Didn't you say you thought he's going to stay with us?"

"Well, I can't see the future—that reminds me, though. Unless he does stay, he doesn't need to learn anything more about what we're up to. If we turn him loose, the last thing we want is for the Sith to find him and make him blab. Clear on that?"

Kaevee pulled a face. "Don't worry. We don't talk much anyway."

When they were done with breakfast, Atton went back over his to-do list. Most of it was just to switch out corroded or worn-down ship components with replacements that were now finally available. He went and got the Remote out of the engine room, paired him up with Ecksee, and gave them as much work as possible. With the former bucket of bolts as taciturn as its maker had been and the latter constantly griping, the two could've been made for each other.

As for the more complicated tasks that he wouldn't trust to a droid, like recalibrating the air scrubbers, Atton saved those for himself and Kaevee, who he again conscripted to serve as an extra pair of hands. She joined him without complaining, and they worked away the hours while hardly trading a word. Was she in one of _those_ moods again, or was she finally starting to mellow out? Had Atris actually talked some sense into her the previous night?

The work was visibly wearing on Kaevee when they got back to it after lunch. Atton kept catching her lounging against the walls or compulsively messing with her hair, and he sensed an undercurrent of fatigue that wasn't from the work itself. Once again she needed to be placated, and he thought of a useful way to do that soon enough.

He let a few more hours pass, then took Kaevee into the garage and started muttering about missing some tools. "Hey, check through there," he said, pointing to one stack of cabinets while he went to another one in the opposite corner of the room, next to the swoop bike.

"What are we looking for, exactly?" asked Kaevee, picking up a synthleather pouch that she found on the work bench.

"Oh, all kinds of things," Atton replied as he flung open a drawer, picked out something random, and held it up. "Hey, here's one—anglebeam. Here, take it."

When the girl took a step toward him, he waved a hand at her. "Uh-uh, we're in a hurry here. You stay put. You're a Jedi, right? Use the Force."

Brushing her bangs away from her eyes, Kaevee gave him a weird look for a second. Then she shrugged and reached out, and the anglebeam zipped across the room and into her hand. She had just tossed it into the tool pouch and half-turned back to the cabinets beside her when Atton said, "Oh, this too. Sub-loop spanner."

The girl hesitated only a little this time, then Force-pulled the spanner over in the same way. And then a magnet. Then a macrosander. Then a Harris wrench. Then an old, burned-out computer spike that Atton said was a repair kit. Then a few bolts, one at a time. Then a hydrospanner. Even with all the time they'd already spent cleaning the garage out, somehow it still seemed to have more hydrospanners than fasteners.

"How about I give you the pouch?" Kaevee said at last, holding it up, though its contents were starting to bulge out of the top.

Atton pulled out a charming smile, though not his _best_ one—that was only for emergencies. "Nah, I'm good, thanks."

"What's the point of this?"

"Nothing. Just seeing what you can do."

The girl set the pouch down and cocked her head at him, seeming curious, but not annoyed, which was good. "All right. What else can I do for you?"

He snapped his fingers. "Oh, you know, we don't really need that microsander. Can I have it back?"

When she had dug it out and offered it to him, he put on a pained expression and said, "Hey, I'm sorry, I kinda sprained my Force-muscles the other day. You can hover it over here, right?"

Kaevee rolled her eyes a little, but did as she was told, not quite launching it back over to him, and he tossed it back where he had gotten it. One by one, they did the same thing with the other tools and the bolts.

"Blast, looks like we didn't really need any of those…" Hiding a smile, Atton pointed to a nearby plasteel drum, the same one that they had filled with unneeded parts and junk when they were cleaning out the garage. "Actually, grab that, won't you?"

Having picked up on the game—or so she thought—the girl raised a hand again, and the container rose and started to float toward her.

"Stop," Atton said, pointing, "keep it there. Actually, move it up a little. More. Okay, don't hit the ceiling. Move it left—no, _my_ left. Now my right. Left again, right again. Back and forth. Good, good. Back and forth…" The girl obeyed, not taking her eyes off the drum as she continued to move it with the Force. She was a picturesque Jedi now, placid and serene, so focused that Atton wasn't certain she was even still listening to him.

He let her go on like that for a little while, watching her through the Force as she sank deeper and deeper into her nirvana of concentration. Then he flicked his wrist, and the doors of the equipment cabinet next to the girl sprang open. Though they couldn't actually reach her, she leaped aside with a cry of dismay, and the plasteel drum fell to the floor with a jangling clash. And as she spun around to look at _that_, Atton threw a bolt—the old-fashioned way, with his hand—which glanced off her shoulder.

She gaped at him, flabbergasted, and favored her arm as though it had been severed. "What was _that_ for?!"

"It was for a greater good, Kaevee," he explained in his deepest, solemnest, most Jedi Masterly voice. "Now tell me, what just happened here?"

She pointed at the open cabinet, then the drum, sputtering, "I— The— You opened that, and you _threw_ something at me, and I—"

"And you dropped the container," he finished, helpfully pointing at it.

"Yes, yes, that's _very_ clear to me now."

He passed a hand over his eyes. "Think for a minute, kid. I'm trying to teach you a lesson here."

"I never asked you for a lesson on anything," she spat, glowering at him. "You don't get to just make me listen to—"

"Um, yes I do," Atton said, sauntering across the room. "It was in the fine print. I give you free room and board, and you let me teach you a few things so that you don't die the next time you meet a Sith. Me, I think it's a good deal, but if you change your mind…" He shrugged. "There's always Dantooine."

Kaevee's outrage lasted a few more seconds, until a wounded look passed over her face and swept it away. Her eyes fell to the floor, as they often did. "You're right, Atton. You're right, I'm sorry."

_Huh. Wasn't even trying the Jedi routine there._ Atton sat down on the drum with a grunt. "Okay, then. Let's start over. When I pulled that cabinet open, what happened?"

She looked over at the cabinet for a moment as though it was the one talking to her, then waved it shut with the Force. "I lost focus."

"Exactly. And that's how it is for any Force-user, but your problem is you lose your focus real easily. Sure, you can move stuff with your mind, and maybe you can shove a few people around during a fight, but that's not gonna take you really far. It definitely won't when there's Sith involved."

The girl kept silent, but the look on her face told him she wasn't totally convinced.

"There's something else," he went on. "When I threw that bolt at you, the Force should've warned you, shouldn't it?"

"Yeah…"

"But it didn't, because…" He paused, searching for a phrase that was accurate without being too fuzzy-headed and mystical, even though such talk might have been more appropriate for his audience. "…because you're out of shape. They brought you up as a Jedi, but you haven't had any training in eleven years, and you haven't practiced to keep yourself sharp. What just happened here, translate that into a crisis. If you didn't sense me about to throw a little piece of metal at you, then you also wouldn't have if it was a frag grenade. Or if I was just gonna blast you."

"Okay, I get it. So what do I do?"

He went over and took a seat before the work bench, facing her, and made a show of cracking his neck. "You're gonna start practicing at using the Force in spite of distractions. Eventually you'll be able to rely on it when you're in the middle of a fight. But start out small. To make you feel better, I'll babysit you for a while."

The girl rolled her eyes again.

"Now get focused and pick up that drum again."

Kaevee slowly raised a hand toward the container. "Are you going to keep throwing things at me?"

"I gotta do _something_ to amuse myself."

* * *

A few days passed. Kaevee still hated space travel, but it seemed to her that she was starting to get used to it. She co-piloted with Atton when they flitted into and out of hyperspace, and though the transitions still gave her the same flashes of nausea, she was more ready for them than before, and she didn't feel quite as lost in the cockpit as she once had. They fixed the air scrubber, tweaked the power coupling, and finished work on almost a dozen other systems. Sometimes the droids helped them, and other times they were off on their own tasks. Atton seemed chipper and kept saying the _Ebon Hawk_ was finally starting to come together, but although Kaevee liked feeling useful, she mostly had to take his word for it. The ship was still about as noisy and grimy as it had ever been.

Cole Terrick maintained a ghostly presence, mostly staying sprawled in the starboard dorm with the lights off and avoiding all contact with the crew. Kaevee was glad for that, but the spacer was an absolute pain during the night. When he wasn't snoring, which sounded like a kath hound being strangled to death, he frequently tossed and turned about on his cot, mumbling some sort of angry gibberish as though he had to curse existence even in his sleep.

At first he left the dorm only to pay brief visits to the refresher or the cargo hold, one result of which was that he used up two more bottles of Corellian ale, prompting Atton to hide one for himself. As time passed, though, he seemed to be slowly emerging from his miserable stupor. Once or twice a day, Kaevee caught him getting food from the synthesizer, which he would immediately take back to the dorm. He also started wandering the _Ebon Hawk_, perhaps taking note of the repairs that had been done; but he still shied away from the crew, including the droids.

The closest he came to actually interacting with anyone was when he tripped over the laigrek while walking into the refresher. Catching himself before he could hit his head on the sink, he shouted something in another language. When Kaevee asked Atton what _echuta_ meant, he told her she didn't want to know.

Kaevee also noticed that Atris hardly ever left the port dormitory. Though she felt a bit conflicted about it, the Padawan left the old woman to her meditations. Once in a while there was an itch to go talk to her, but then she would remember the unpleasant directions that their previous conversation had gone in. Worse, she remembered the anti-Jedi tirade Atris had gone on back on Belsavis, and despite her assurances, Kaevee wasn't convinced that the old woman was not looking for an opportunity to do so again.

For a few hours every day, Atton would coach Kaevee in the garage on the use of Force powers, putting her through a few simple exercises in concentration and endurance. Kaevee wasn't certain that she was growing any stronger in the Force, but she _was_ learning not to be bothered by how much her tutor enjoyed pelting her with small objects. Still, it was a better pastime than chores and mechanical work. And, secretly, it made her feel a little bit more like she was an actual Jedi again.

"Using the Force well depends on being able to maintain your concentration," Atton told her during one session. "The less advanced you are, the more it costs you to split your attention."

Kaevee stood like a statue, one arm outstretched as she moved the plasteel junk drum in a wide circle across the other half of the room. Every few seconds, Atton would randomly take a fastener or other tiny object from one of the equipment cabinets and throw it at her, sometimes hitting her and sometimes not. She stood at the center of a small field of debris.

Her tutor pointed at the drum. "See that? It's wobbling, and sometimes you speed up, sometimes slow down. In fact, your performance is probably affected by just having to listen to me."

"So why don't you stop talking?" Kaevee said under her breath as the drum began to undulate like a slow-motion top at the end of its spin. Sweat was starting to trickle down into her eyes.

Atton answered her without missing a beat. "Because I'm not nice, and neither are Sith. Some of them like to talk smack while fighting, to whittle away at your concentration, and they're not gonna stop just because you ask them."

"Okay, gotcha. I need a break." Kaevee brought the drum to the middle of the room and let it down with a bang, but it wasn't quite loud enough to say she dropped it. Wiping her face with her sleeve, she sat down on the drum, facing Atton, who was by the work bench as usual. Their eyes wandered the room, looking at each other, looking at stuff, looking at nothing.

"Listen," she said after a minute, "when are you gonna help me build a lightsaber?"

Atton shrugged with his eyes. "I dunno. I wasn't planning on it anytime soon."

"But I need one."

"I'm not so sure of that. How about the saber you had on Dantooine? Was that one yours?"

Kaevee shook her head, trying to pass over the memory of Master Vrook's mangled body. And the name of the Sith who had killed him. And Atton's uncertain connection to the Sith who had killed him. Pulling the decapitated hilt from her robe, she said, "No, I… just found it. Look, I still have it, mostly. I just need help repairing it."

Atton regarded it with a bland look. "You're getting way ahead of yourself here. What you need is to start with a vibroblade and learn how to use that—once we get our hands on one. I noticed, also, you brought your own blaster—"

"Oh, come on. _You've_ got a lightsaber."

"Yeah, and I've got a lot of other stuff too," he shot back. "Different tools for different jobs."

"A lightsaber's not just a tool."

The pilot brought a hand up to pat one of his jacket pockets. "Well, mine is to me. I'm not married to the thing. Didn't build it, either, just put it back together. In fact, I don't even like the color that much."

Kaevee crossed her legs. "Hm. What color would you like, then?"

Atton leaned his chair back for a moment, staring at the ceiling, then let it down again. "Ah, I dunno… Actually, yellow'd be all right."

Kaevee shook her head, unable to understand how anyone could think so little of the weapon of the Jedi.

"How good's your aim with that blaster?"

The Padawan blushed slightly. It was embarrassing enough that she owned a blaster at all, but Atton knowing that she did made it worse. "It's all right… I actually _have_ practiced with it from time to time…"

"You ever clean it?"

Since when did blasters need to be _cleaned?_ "Well, no. But if I had a lightsaber and you taught me how to use it, I wouldn't need a blaster or anything else like that."

The pilot leaned forward and studied her, his elbows on his knees. "There you go again, thinking the standard Jedi way of doing things is the be-all end-all. Sure, a saber has its advantages. It's powerful and it can protect you from blaster fire, but it's got weaknesses. It can't protect you from poison gas, or sonic weaponry, or explosions. And if you don't know what you're doing, you can just _stumble_ and lop your own arm off."

"I know that already…"

"Actually no, you really don't know it if having a saber's all you care about. It means you don't know its limitations." He rubbed his hands together. "Here's another one, by the way: it's a melee weapon, but since you've got telekinesis, you might get it into your head to throw it at somebody in the middle of a fight. Unless you're really desperate, that's generally a pretty bad idea."

Kaevee could vaguely remember seeing a few Jedi throw their sabers during sparring matches or contests. "How come?"

"Because once you throw your weapon away, you don't have it anymore. You can pull it back to yourself, but then that's a couple seconds where you can't use it to block an attack. You see what I'm getting at here? This is the problem with you Jedi—and Sith are the same way. You go around with nothing but a saber and Force powers, thinking that's all you need to solve any problem at all, but it's not." He gave a shake of his head. "I can't tell you how many Jedi I've seen get themselves killed just because they were too cocky to carry a blaster."

Kaevee hesitated to reply to that, feeling a mixture of curiosity and dread that no one seemed able to stir up in her like Atton could. She turned her thoughts aside to Dantooine, and how the Jedi there hadn't been defeated in a fair fight—the Sith had bombarded them from orbit before landing. Outrage smoldered within her, but she forced it down, realizing that Atton might have a point after all.

"Come on," he said. "Let's get back to moving stuff."

"All right." Kaevee got up and went back to where she'd stood before, stepping between the scattered bits of metal on the floor. She reached out and picked up the drum before turning to face it, and as she came about, she caught sight of Cole Terrick leaning in the north doorway, watching with a look of slight unease. She pretended not to notice, but still the drum started to wobble where it was, halfway to the ceiling.

The pilot hit Kaevee with three fasteners, then turned to the observer with a welcoming grin. "Hey, look who's up and about. You feeling any better?"

Cole stepped into the room. Though he was a bit unsteady on his feet, he'd tried to clean himself up; he'd apparently gotten into the spare clothes in the dorm, switching out his stained, ruffled shirt and pants for a fresh set, though he retained his red jacket. He had washed his face and combed his hair, but distractingly dark patches of stubble crowded his chin and cheeks. He opened his mouth to speak, but broke off as Kaevee noisily set the drum down again; the spacer stifled a laugh, and Kaevee glared at the floor around his feet.

"Yeah," he said to Atton, "just a little. I've been thinking. Given the fact that I'm broke and have nothing, and nobody reliable who'd give me a place to stay, I'd like to join your crew, if that's still possible… Okay, I wouldn't _like_ to, I mean, at all, but it looks to me like I _have_ to, so I might as well accept it."

The pilot treated him to the same probing, inquisitive look he had given Kaevee. "All right. We could use your help, but you better know what you're in for here. The _Ebon Hawk_'s into work that's a lot riskier than just smuggling or piracy. We're trying to take down an Empire here. Tangling with Sith's not good for your health."

"Can't be worse than being thrown into the galaxy without a credit to my name," said Cole, and Kaevee noticed that he actually rolled his eyes. Was he stupid?

She reminded herself that this was the man who had almost thrown his life away for a box of credits. Yes, he was.

Atton went on. "Also, once you're part of this crew, you're _in_. Because among other things, we're trading really big-time, sensitive information—"

"I don't necessarily need to know anything about that," the spacer said, holding up a hand. "Don't care what you people are up to, long as I get room and board. I can fly a ship, make repairs, fire a blaster. Just give me crap to do and keep me outta your special briefings or whatever. I'll pull my weight." His look suddenly hardened. "There's just one other thing I want out of this deal. If I ever find me a chance to get off the _Ebon Hawk_, make a fresh start somewhere else, and I decide to take it—you people don't get in my way."

Kaevee watched from the sidelines as the two men stared each other down, trying to get a read on Atton's thoughts and coming up blank, as usual. She hoped he would refuse, hoped he would be just as difficult with this worldly nuisance of a spacer as he had been with her—

Cole offered a hand to Atton, who let it hover for a few seconds before standing up and giving it a shake. "That sounds fair," he said brightly. "Welcome aboard. You'll regret it."

"Oh, I already do."

The two men chuckled strangely, and Kaevee's heart sank, but her sullenness was interrupted when the spacer walked up to her. He had a smile on now that looked a bit sheepish. "And you, uh…"

She barely met his eyes. "Kaevee."

"Kaevee. I suppose I should thank you for saving my life. Even though you also helped ruin it."

"It was the right thing to do," she said woodenly as she shook his hand.

The spacer turned back to Atton. "Right, well, I'm getting something to eat, then I guess I'll talk to you and figure out what needs doing around here." With that he hurried from the room.

"You should thank me," the pilot said after a minute. "It means less work for you."

And it did, apparently, because he mostly turned her loose for the last few days of the trip to Daluuj, focusing instead on getting Cole familiarized with the _Ebon Hawk_ and contributing to its repairs. Aside from a couple afterthought chores—move this, sort that—Kaevee was left adrift. Atton gave her a few more of the truncated training sessions, but started encouraging her to continue practicing on her own. Kaevee busied herself with that as much as she could; sharing the unwelcome environment of a starship with even more strange people than before left her more restless than ever. Her taste for conversation dried up, as well; every time she had talked to Atris or Atton, she'd found herself with one more thing to spend her free time trying not to think about, and she was sure it would be more of the same with Cole Terrick.

After Atton had refused to help her repair Master Vrook's lightsaber, Kaevee put it in the little compartment underneath her cot, along with her blaster and few other possessions. Before bed every night, she opened the compartment, looked at the lightsaber for just a moment, and reminded herself to put her trust in the Force.


	15. To Those Who Wait

Silbus had been in the thralls of blissful productivity for some time and was, in fact, only a few chapters from the end of Fulmimius Graush's tome when an unprecedented disturbance stopped him cold. Quite out of the blue, the ancient alchemist had begun to employ lengthy quotations from an older source, one in a very obscure variant of Proto-Massassese which Silbus had not encountered in years. To translate it, he would need to consult the Fyblorian Codex which, if he was not mistaken, was still somewhere in his private library.

Trayus Academy's denizens did not number in the thousands, but its vaulted halls and chambers seemed as close as they could get to bustling as the Headmaster hurried through them; Sith of every rank were moving about, some in groups holding excited conversations. This led the Headmaster, who wasn't sure when he had last slept, to guess that it was the middle of the morning. Whatever the time, he made sure to walk swiftly enough that he could ignore the greetings and salutations that were flung his way. There was no time for such trifles; he had translation to do!

The swarm thinned out after he had crossed the nexus of the academy, and he soon found himself alone as he entered a grand hall that provided access to the western wing. Columns of pillars ran down its length on either side, and beyond them huge windows provided a panorama of the desolate surface of Malachor V. Above the vast expanse of broken spires of rock, a few reptavian drexls glided freely in the storm-racked skies. Like the more numerous bomas, these predators had been imported from Dxun, but they were far larger and more vicious.

Though he did not slow his pace, the Headmaster took a moment to track one of the drexls as it dropped out of sight and into some gorge, having perhaps spotted a storm beast to feed upon. It was appropriate that he have such creatures at his beck and call: hulking, unthinking titans of muscle and bone, perfectly obedient. It was a pity the pens had room for only a dozen or so. Silbus would have let them all roam outside the academy—they added a nice touch to the atmosphere—but then they would kill off all the storm beasts, and he had some fondness for them as well. Besides, they were thought to be products of a past experiment in Sith alchemy, and he would perhaps gain some insight from studying them, once his current project was complete.

Halfway down the hall he came to a stop, sensing something out of place. There was a living presence nearby, but it was muted, trying to cloak itself in the dark side. Silbus, however, was practiced enough in such techniques to see through them with ease. A few seconds passed, and he found that he recognized this presence as well.

Swinging around to face a nearby pillar, he barked, "Gorbus, you clot, what are you doing?!"

There was an embarrassed pause before the Human's voice replied, "I'm practicing my Quey'tek, my lord."

"Ignorant whelp. Did you really think you could hide from _me_ within the walls of my own academy?"

The Marauder shuffled out from behind the pillar just as Silbus was about to order him to do so. "Of course not, m'lord. I'm waiting for Yaiban to come through here. I was thinking of surprising him."

"If you do that, he may cut you in pieces," the Nautolan said hopefully.

Gorbus' face gave way to an impudent grin. "He may try, but my blade is faster than his."

"Why don't you find your other friend, Zanjo, and let him practice his mind tricks on you?"

The Human drew himself up. "Because, my lord, I don't repeat my mistakes."

"_That_ remains to be seen." Silbus' mind was awash with a number of creative things that he would have liked to say and, more importantly, do to this oaf. Remembering the urgency of his project, however, he swept them aside, settling instead for a concise rebuke, and went on his way.

The speed of his journey had winded him by the time he at last reached his chambers and trudged into the private library. With the room's center dominated by a large and very expensive desk of dark red greel wood, it ostensibly doubled as an office, but the layer of dust which adorned the desk and the random items left there testified to Silbus' preference for Trayus Core. Pausing in the doorway, he eyed the many shelves and transparisteel display cases that lined the walls. His collections included archaic print books as well as several types of more practical digital media, not to mention holocrons, and he could not remember which form the Fyblorian Codex was in.

Sighing, he went to the bookcases and began his search. Sour though it already was, his mood worsened further as his encounter with Gorbus picked at his mind, drawing up distracting thoughts that had previously been suppressed.

He would have enjoyed requiting the Human's moronic behavior with a burst of Sith lightning. Civil war, however, had thinned the Sith Order's numbers, and new initiates had only been arriving in a trickle over the years. As a result, executing or even seriously disciplining lower-level Sith for incompetence, negligence, or one's own amusement was no longer permissible outside the most extreme of cases. Gone were the days when hopefuls had crowded the doors of the academy on Korriban, practically begging for creative torments and humiliations.

Nor was there a Dreshdae on Malachor—full of expendable nobodies, a veritable playground for younger Sith who had not yet sated their appetites for cruelty and wantonness. There was the garrison at Singularity Base, but few were interested in making the kilometers-long trek across the unforgiving terrain—and through a few dozen hostile storm beasts—even for the fun of tormenting a few hapless soldiers. And those soldiers were also in short supply, so that could not be permitted in any case.

There was an easier way to make the trip, however, in the form of a subterranean hovertram that linked the academy to the understructure of Singularity Base's command center. Installed at Darth Revan's order over a decade ago, its terminal at the academy was not far from Trayus Core. Rarely if ever used, its existence was a secret that Silbus, like his predecessors, had vigilantly maintained. He feared that if the students were to learn of it, they would start to hound him, groveling and scraping for the privilege of access, disrupting his workflow even further…

He shook his head, allowing himself a moment of despondency. At times like these, it felt almost as though Lord Malak had never saved him from the dreary purgatory of Dagary Minor in the first place.

Moments passed as he went to the next shelf down, then the next, then the next, his neck and back aching in protest and he stooped farther and farther. Shrugging off the pain, he reminded himself not to be so self-pitying. He had endured greater trials than these. Korriban, for instance, had come with its own slew of hazards and botherations. Wherever he went, there were things favorable and unfavorable, darkness and light, wet spots and dry.

How great had been his excitement and satisfaction during his first years there, on the homeworld of the ancient Sith, beginning at last to plumb the depths of _true_ knowledge! Yet academy life turned out to be perilous, and the Sith there were, to say the least, a rowdy bunch. Rivalries, shaky alliances, and backstabbings were all the rage. Too often, Silbus' efforts to keep himself aloof from these dangers served only to make himself more of a target. The fact that his sole desire was to carry out crucial academic work which would benefit the Sith Order for generations to come was of little concern to his assailants, and the academy library became the backdrop for not a few brawls and duels.

Really, it was quite tiresome, but in spite of all the disruptions, which were even worse than those he'd endured at the university, Silbus had managed to thrive on Korriban. Even as he devoured the seminal texts produced by Marka Ragnos and his rival, Simus, he set to work on valuable commentaries written by their contemporaries, in due time translating them into Basic. Proving himself to be of unrivaled intelligence as well as difficult to kill, he earned the praise of the academy's Headmaster, a Human named Jorak Uln.

Silbus had always been fond of Uln. Like himself, he possessed a mature, well-rounded character that was generally misunderstood. A man of advanced age, he had actually served in the Great Sith War under Exar Kun, and therefore most of his students revered him as a fierce, tenacious warrior, a living link to the glorious past. There was some truth to this image; indeed, Uln had wasted much of his life on mastering the lightsaber forms, and he was in fact personally responsible for turning Kun's anomalous double-bladed gimmick into a fad. But in his mature years he had become a prodigious scholar in his own right, spending grueling decades recovering the teachings of Tulak Hord.

In Silbus' estimation, the rumors of Uln's mental instability were greatly exaggerated. In any case, he had been disappointed when the Human was driven from the academy and replaced by his ambitious apprentice, Uthar Wynn. Having known from the start that Wynn was as plain a Sith as they come, Silbus kept his distance and focused ever more on his own work. But the new Headmaster was shrewd, paranoid, and above all else full of himself, and kept a wary eye on the unassuming Nautolan scholar, the pursuer of powerful secrets. No less solicitous was his Twi'lek apprentice, Yuthura Ban, who openly suspected Silbus of plotting to take over the academy for himself. Completely unfounded though they were, these accusations came to obsess the Headmaster, and he resolved to take action. In the end he arranged for his supposed rival to be relocated from Korriban to another, more obscure academy on the pretext that his mental prowess would be put to better use there.

Coming to the end of the print books, Silbus paused before a pedestal supporting Wynn's backhanded parting gift, which his apprentice had presented in his stead: a simple granetite statuette of—ironically enough—Tulak Hord.

A smirk crept its way onto the Headmaster's lips as he moved on to the square glass cases containing his holocrons. "Oh, lovely Yuthura Ban," he mused as his eyes flicked from label to label, "you rancorous, groveling little strumpet, how I wish you could see me now."

As incensed as Silbus had been at first, he soon learned that his would-be nemesis could have done no greater service than to exile him to secluded Trayus Academy. Its libraries were much larger than Korriban's and nearly as old. Just as important, there was a greater sense of discipline in place, and the environment was quieter and far less volatile. Silbus' influence and prestige grew and he went on to teach classes in Sith philosophy and history, forming the minds of future generations of Sith. To his heart's content he worked on the ancient texts, unearthing knowledge that had once been lost.

Insulated by the secrecy and remoteness of Trayus Academy, Silbus had steadily progressed in his career, invisible to the Jedi and undisturbed by the power plays that occasionally shook the rest of the Sith Empire. Even before the civil war began, a few stirs broke out on Korriban. The first of these, Silbus was gratified to hear, had been the deaths of both Wynn and his lapdog—and at Revan's hand, no less.

The Nautolan quickly went through the holocrons, then moved on to the holobooks. Like the print books, these were arranged according to author, but this would be of no use to Silbus. "Fyblorian" referred to the school where the codex had been produced, not its author or authors, of whose name or names he had no recollection.

Yet, as if there was such a thing as a will of the Force, and as if that will was on his side, the Headmaster picked out the codex within seconds. A flash of giddiness momentarily dispelled the aches of his body and his meandering mental musings. He flicked his wrist, and the slender, gleaming black volume leaped from its charging slot with the excitement of a tadpole. It landed smoothly on the desk and slid halfway across its face. Followed by an explosive trail of dust, it jostled a few irregularly-needed articles and knickknacks before coming to rest with a final metallic _tap_ against the onyx hilt of a lightsaber. Silbus glided over to the desk, but even as he reached for the holobook, his eyes fell on the weapon and he was drawn into the past once again.

In his first days in the Sith Academy, he'd been skeptical upon first hearing that he would be required to construct a lightsaber as part of his training. After all, what did a man of letters need with such a thing, especially when the power of the dark side was rushing upon him as quickly as it was? Many years later he would hear Darth Traya speak with some exasperation of the obsession so many Sith had with these weapons. _Such tiny things of light,_ she had called them. Ah, it was a pity she was gone. A bit too melancholy for Silbus' tastes, but all the same, few among even the Sith Lords saw things as clearly as she had.

Coming back to himself, the Headmaster took the prized holobook in both hands with the delicate reverence of a high priest for a sacred relic. He took a moment to draw the device back to himself, his thumbs caressing its synthplas face as that of a lover. Then, cradling it in both arms, he swept from the room.


	16. The Relay

Kaevee stepped from the _Ebon Hawk_'s loading ramp and relished the squish of wet earth under her feet. Closing her eyes, she tipped her head back, letting the light rain speckle her face. For a brief moment she held out her tongue, then sighed. The rain on Daluuj tasted the same as on Dantooine. Beside her, the laigrek sniffed the air and croaked softly.

Naturally, it was Atton who interrupted Kaevee's bliss. "Hey, get the ramp."

Coming back to herself, the Padawan went to the little panel and hit the combination, and the ramp hissed and grumbled as it sealed itself up. Silhouetted against the overcast sky, shadowy birds which had been disturbed by the _Hawk_'s descent fluttered about, cawing resentfully as they warily returned to their perches in the canopy of the trees.

A few meters ahead, the Remote hovered in place, rotating this way and that. Flanking the little droid, Atton and Cole stood squinting into the shade that surrounded the clearing. Both men had put on hooded gray rain coats and pants, heavy boots, and other such gear.

The spacer checked a blaster pistol Atton had given him, holstered it, and crossed his arms. "That old woman's sure got it easy," he remarked, casting a sour glance over his shoulder.

"Somebody's got to watch the ship," said Atton blandly.

"No, I mean all the time. Seriously, does she _do_ anything?"

"She's a specialist, let's put it that way. And you… you're just a grunt."

"Yeah," Cole growled as Kaevee and the laigrek came up beside them. "I guess I am." Thankfully, he was quiet after that.

They didn't expect to be on Daluuj for more than a few hours; as Atton had put it, the greatest difficulty would just be the hikes to and from the relay station. Still, he wanted an escort for himself and for the Remote, which turned out to be housing the data he wanted to send to Admiral Opelle; apparently the droid would also help with slicing into the relay itself. Since Atris was not up for the trek, she and X-C88 would keep the _Ebon Hawk_ secure. If there were any signs of danger, they would to call Atton on the comlink. Worst case scenario, the droid could pilot the ship or they could send out a general distress signal. Not that the latter was likely to do much good; on uncolonized Daluuj, there would be no one to pick up the signal, unless some smugglers or other lowlifes happened to be hiding out nearby.

Atton rapped his knuckles against the Remote as though knocking on a door. "Let's get a move on," he said, and the party followed the droid as it beeped and floated off into the woods. Bringing up the rear, Kaevee finger-brushed her rain-slicked hair, then pulled up her hood, not wanting to get her head soaked. She'd declined to put on a raincoat; her Jedi cloak was tough enough to keep her dry.

Dantooine had forests, but these trees were not blba trees; not only were they much taller, but their bark was not exposed. Their trunks—the live ones, at least—were mostly covered in wet, mossy strands that looked almost like grass growing right out of the bark. Huge curtains of vines draping from the forest canopy deepened the shade to murky darkness in places. Patches of heavy mist that occasionally deepened into fog hung close to the earth.

Kaevee eased herself into the Force and sighed as she listened to the steady, subdued thrum of life surrounding her. Alien though it was, the feel of an actual biosphere after so many days of confinement to durasteel enclosures was a profound relief, like the sudden lifting of a chronic ache.

After a few minutes of enjoying the environment, she realized that she had stopped paying attention to where the group was going; a backward glance revealed that the _Ebon Hawk_'s clearing was completely out of sight. Silently chastising herself, she narrowed her Force sense to her more immediate surroundings.

As it crawled along beside her, she felt her laigrek scanning the landscape and particularly its darker patches. Its huge, glowing eyes tracked little boot-sized lizards and mammals as they scurried into dens or up moss-covered tree trunks. Once in a while it slowed down, tantalized by some living morsel or another, until the Padawan gave it a little mental tug, and it caught up to her. She supposed that her pet had to be just as happy about the change of scenery as she was.

The scenery itself, on the other hand, seemed ambivalent toward the party, its various members either keeping an eye on them and steering clear or else ignoring them altogether. One exception was a small cloud of darting insects that enveloped them some distance into the forest. Cole started slapping and swiping at them, even though none seemed intent on landing on him. "Damn bugs, fraggin' bugs," he muttered three or four times.

Atton gave Kaevee a pointed look over his shoulder as though prompting her to do something. She assumed that one of the reasons she'd been brought along was her power over animals, in case they ran into anything hostile and predatory. But did he expect her to use the Force just to make some gnats leave them alone? How petty would that be?

To be honest, though, she also wasn't sure if she could do it; she'd never tried to control anything that small. She could feel the bugs in the Force, yes, but they felt different, less _there_ than a laigrek or a bol. Something told her that the size of a creature shouldn't make a difference, but that was only a guess. She only gave the pilot a shrug, and a moment later the gnats lost interest in the party and disappeared.

The Remote led them on, circumventing dense bushes and fallen moss-coated trunks. Gradually the woods thinned out, and now they trudged across bleak, muddy plains and the occasional treacherous slope. The fog was thicker here and troubled easily, swirling across the landscape. Off to the left, the waves of an olivine lake splashed with surprising intensity against its shores. A mere glance with the Force told Kaevee that something big was moving beneath its surface. She wanted to stop and stare, and maybe try and coax it into poking its head up into view—assuming it had a head. She wished they didn't have to be going somewhere, wished she could explore Daluuj just for a little while. If she could have some real time to herself, some time to roam, maybe she would be more at ease with the rest of the crew…

She realized she was falling behind the party a little. "Focus, focus," she whispered to herself as she went to catch up. "I am a Jedi. The Force is with me…"

Over the next mile the terrain became firmer and their route turned subtly uphill, until at last they came to a wide rocky outcrop that stood several feet up over their heads. The Remote floated right up to it, then disappeared into a cleft that was hidden in one of its protrusions. Atton, Cole, and Kaevee followed, shuffling sideways to fit through the passage, then found themselves in a miniature box canyon with mud-colored slate walls on either side. The walls were rough, but the relative smoothness of the path suggested that it was artificial. As they went down it, Kaevee sensed eyes on her. Slight bulges in the canyon wall occasionally detached themselves from the rock and flashed upward into the sky, turning out to be camouflaged avians of some kind.

Atton took out his comlink as they approached the canyon's end. "Ecksee, we're almost to the relay station. Haven't had any trouble. Things good over there?" He pulled a face as he listened to the droid's caustic reply.

"Why don't you give that thing a memory wipe?" Cole asked.

"I already tried to," Atton said as he put the comlink away.

"What do you mean, you _tried?_"

"I'm not good with droids."

They came to a stop. Before them, a gated chain link fence topped with razor wire guarded a featureless ferrocrete slab that pointed skyward like a six-meter-tall finger. Stained the color of mud by decades' exposure to the elements, it reminded Kaevee of the ancient obelisks on Dantooine—ruins that had been there before the Enclave was built, supposedly—if its sculptor hadn't been allowed to put any details on his work.

The skeletal remains of trespassing critters that surrounded the fence testified that there was more to the defensive barrier than met the eye, but Atton went straight up to the keypad at the gate and punched in a code. There was a low beep, and the gate slid open with a metallic squeal.

The Remote preceded him into the transmitter building. Atton paused in the doorway and looked over his shoulder. "Stay sharp, you two. At the first sign of trouble, just scream. Hopefully we'll be on our way back to the _Hawk_ in an hour." With that he headed in.

Noticing that the rain had lessened to a sprinkle, Kaevee pulled her hood back. Cole did likewise as he sauntered outside the fence. "Guard duty," he snorted. "Ain't this a treat." Sitting down on a rock, he pulled out a ration bar, unwrapped it, and chomped off one end. He chewed slowly, loudly, squinting at the mists that drifted over the canyon's floor.

After mentally enjoining her pet to stay away from the fence, Kaevee joined Cole outside it. She put a hand in her pocket, felt the weight of the blaster pistol there, and hoped she had practiced enough with it. "Do you think there's going to be trouble?" she asked. To her it seemed like a stupid question, but she found that she couldn't bear the silence, despite the man she was sharing it with.

The spacer grunted, his voice muffled as he continued to savor the ration bar. "Ah, who's to say. Wouldn't surprise me. Don't suppose you're one of those types who can see into the future, are you?"

Kaevee paused to think. "No. But some Jedi could, some of the Masters."

"Uh-huh. Like that old bat who gets a whole dorm to herself?"

"I guess. I don't know if Atris can see the _future_, exactly… But she did tell me she saw me in a vision or something from across the galaxy. That's how Atton found me on Dantooine."

"Dantooine. What were you doing there?"

"It's where I lived. I lived there by myself after the Enclave was destroyed." She looked up, realizing that this was her first actual conversation with Cole Terrick. "Anyway, Atris isn't a Jedi, not anymore."

The spacer waved a hand. "Eh, whatever. Sith, Jedi, it's all the same to me. Force-users, I don't like 'em. They know things I don't."

Kaevee looked at him with some unease, realizing something that she ought to have noticed sooner: Cole did not seem to be fazed by the Force at all. He'd never commented on being thrown through the air twice, and now here he was talking about Force-users as if they were just another mundane topic. "You've met Jedi and Sith before?"

"They're the same to me."

The Padawan exhaled sharply at that—the same ungrateful ignorance that led people to call Revan's war of conquest the _Jedi Civil_ War. Though she didn't lose sight of the fact that Cole hadn't answered her question, she also remembered how she had resolved, on Atris' advice, to rein in her curiosity about Atton's past. Kaevee supposed she ought to take the same approach with all of her companions. That was going to be difficult, considering she hadn't _had_ any for eleven years.

She took a deep breath and reached into the Force, trying to feel the ripples and flows of the world around her, to stay alert like she was supposed to. She listened for anything unusual, any hint of violent intent—

From just a few feet away there came an awful, warbling shriek and the clatter of rocks which echoed down the canyon. Cursing loudly, Cole sprang to his feet and whirled toward the sound, his blaster at the ready. Kaevee's heart was in her throat as she leaped to his side, drawing her own weapon and aiming in the same direction.

A few seconds of mind-numbing terror later, the sight before her registered and she relaxed. It was only her laigrek; it had silently inched over to the canyon wall nearby, where it had somehow spotted one of the camouflaged birds hugging the rock. Whether the creature had been asleep or else found some reason to stay on its perch, the laigrek had leaped up and sank one of its front scythe-legs into its belly. The bird thrashed and gurgled as it was scraped down the wall, dislodging small rocks as it went, until the laigrek at last scrambled on top of its prey and used another leg to slash its head off.

A slight, sudden chill came over Kaevee, and she looked back toward the relay building. Atton stood in the gateway of the fence, a blaster in hand. Before she could say anything, the pilot rolled his eyes and went back inside.

His trigger hand shaking, Cole reholstered his blaster and scanned the ground until he spotted his ration bar—it had fallen into a nearby mud puddle. After raking Kaevee with a scowl, he kicked it away and sat back down on his rock.

Her cheeks burning, Kaevee drifted to the opposite wall of the canyon, muttering to herself, "I am a Jedi, the Force is with me, I am a Jedi, the Force is with me," to distract herself from the sounds of vigorous gnawing and delighted chittering. Even on Dantooine, she had never particularly enjoyed watching her pets eat.

* * *

The Remote beeped a question as Atton shut the door behind him and settled back in his chair.

"Nothing. I was just saying hi."

Like thousands of similar facilities scattered across the known galaxy, this relay station was designed for maximum possible automation and self-sufficiency. Camouflaged by its remote location, it would ideally function for years or even decades without needing to be visited by Republic personnel for any reason. For the sake of that off-chance, though, it sported a control room about the size of the _Hawk_'s refresher. Aside from the computers, it also had a maintenance hatch leading underground, where most of the relay's actual machinery was housed.

Atton ran his eyes over the data feeds to the left, right, and in front of him. The screens were all pretty spartan, just yellow text on black, but the glow was harsh, almost brighter than the overhead light. Dust motes swirled like a slow-motion blizzard in the stale air. "So where were we?" he grunted.

Still connected to the middle computer's data jack by a slender interface cable, the talking ball gave him an update. The relay's droid brain was a little wary, but the Remote assured Atton that it would soon agree to unlock the relay controls.

As the droid continued its work, Atton leaned back and ruminated. Thinking back on the little disturbance that had just taken place outside, he wondered again whether taking Kaevee on as part of the crew would be worth the trouble. And now as a bonus, the debacle with the _Sharp Turn_ meant he also had Cole Terrick to have the exact same thoughts about over and over and over. Admittedly, both of them had shown signs that they were getting broken in to life aboard the _Hawk_, but Daluuj was the first time they had to actually do anything together.

Atton had a bad feeling that things like this were going to keep happening—just in case he ever started to think it was safe to turn his back on them. He wondered if this was what it was like to have kids. Yeah, wasn't that a nice little nightmarish spin to put on it?

He told himself they all just needed time to find out how to tolerate each other's existence. It was a familiar situation—_too_ familiar, really—and it had a natural progression to follow. Kaevee was a little farther down the path than Cole. Despite her rough landing on Belsavis, the girl's Jedi fanaticism had actually enabled her to commit to their mission. Cole, however, was still in the process of discovering exactly what he was in for. Atton wouldn't put it past him to change his mind and try to jump ship after all. There was still some mental resistance to break down. Then again…

_Look_, he remembered himself saying a lifetime ago. _Enough with the "we," already._

There was a satisfying jingle of beeps and breedles as the data feeds flickered from yellow to green. Atton reached for the keyboard. "Good work," he said. "Start uploading the files. I'm gonna reconfigure the transmitter, then patch us into the HoloNet…"

Monkeying with military-grade communications programming was just more pazaak to Atton. Even as he worked on that, his mind was able to wander. A funny feeling suffused his thoughts. It was almost a giddiness, a kind of disbelief at how far he had come to reach this point. After months of being on the run, and all the bodies and close calls he had left behind while zig-zagging across known and unknown space, his fool's-errand scheme was only just about to _begin_. When the transmission was sent, the scheme would no longer be just in his head. It would be out there in the galaxy, where he'd see whether it would survive.

As usual, the odds of success were slim. But the fact they were higher than zero meant they were good enough for a stubborn son of a bitch like Atton to bet on it. In this case, he was betting on the good will of a man he had never actually met.

_My name's Atton Rand,_ began the holorecording which prefaced the files he was going to send. _Fifteen years ago I served in the 92__nd__ Army Division, stationed aboard the frigate _Loxley_, which was part of your battlegroup. Both of us served at Malachor—and I'm hoping that means something to you, enough for you to listen to what I have to say._

It all came back to Malachor V, more than anyone had ever guessed—anyone except those "lucky" few who were in the know…

Apparently even the droid had the planet of storms in mind. Though usually a machine of few words, it gave a pensive series of chimes about its maker.

Atton didn't slow down with the keyboard. "Yeah, it's looking that way. Keep your fingers crossed," he said—then, after a beat, "Well, you know what I mean."

It sure was funny how things worked out—or at least it was, provided you used a very special, sick definition of "funny." For all Atton thought of this as _his_ plan, he'd only come up with about half of it. Setting Malachor as the first target, as well as the exact way of dealing with it, that had been Bao-Dur. The Iridonian had wasted no time explaining this, once Atton had found him again and cleared things up.

The guy'd had a lot of time to think it through.

In fact, he'd already tried it six years before. While Meetra was murdering her way into Trayus Academy in order to finish losing herself there, and the rest of the crew made up their minds to kill time aboard the _Ebon Hawk_, Bao-Dur had taken matters into his own hands. Had he taken Goto's droid into consideration, things would be very different.

As it was, it had fallen to Atton to pull the trigger.

He thought of Bao-Dur's Remote—taken across countless worlds, disabled and repaired several times, its goals locked in by programming. And this one programmed goal—destroy Malachor—staying lodged in its behavior core, unfulfilled, for years and years. Just thinking about that gave Atton goosebumps. _Like having an itch you can't scratch—for _six years, he thought, and thanked the stars he wasn't a droid. Could there be anything worse?

While he was still on that train of thought, he stopped it—quit while he was ahead—and switched over to just counting cards as he worked on the relay with the droid. Before an hour had passed, everything was ready, and with the unclimactic tap of yet another key, he input the final transmission command. The data would cross the galaxy and make its way to Admiral Opelle.

There would be no red tape, no middlemen, no being thrown into a force cage and interrogated. Opelle would just see the evidence, hear the appeal—_Will you trust me?_—and what happened next would depend on his response.

In that way, Atton's plan was pretty simple. Like most of his plans, it straddled the line between genius and idiocy, but at least he wasn't all the way on the latter side.


	17. The Hike Back

Kaevee and Cole looked enormously relieved when Atton and the Remote emerged from the relay building. When he had closed the gate after himself, Atton called Ecksee to make sure everything was fine back at the ship. The droid said it was.

As with before, there wasn't much talk much on the hike. The silence between the girl and Cole was obviously frayed, but at least it was silence. The whole experience reminded Atton, just a little, of his days as a soldier. It made him think of being out on patrol. Or ambush. When you dug in somewhere to wait for some poor Mando, or a redjacket—what they called Republic soldiers—to happen along so you could grease him or take him prisoner, the worst thing you could have in the squad was a nervous greenie who wouldn't stop talking.

They trekked over the bleak hills and plains without incident, and Atton furrowed his brow as they approached the outskirts of the woods. They distinctly reminded him of the jungles of Dxun, another place that was wet, muddy, and populated with ugly critters and echoing with the not-distant-enough brays of slimy beasts. Not to mention, it was a perfect place to be surprised by bounty hunters, Sith assassins, slavers, bandits, local authorities—

They were a stone's throw from the tree line when Kaevee came up and grabbed his arm. "Atton," she said, "something's wrong."

He had already come to a stop, though, because he realized that his train of thought had not been random. "What is it?"

The girl had a strained look in her eyes, as though trying to track something that was moving far away. "It's Atris. She's trying to warn us. I can feel it." Beside her, the giant bug raised its head and sniffed the misty air.

Atton dug out his comlink. "Ecksee, it's Atton. Talk to me." He waited, but was answered only by a low, flat stream of static. "It's being jammed," he announced.

His blaster already drawn, Cole was turning back and forth warily, scanning the fog-shrouded woods ahead, then the rainswept slopes behind them. "Someone's here," he breathed. "I heard footsteps."

Atton hadn't, but he knew that didn't matter. He had a bad feeling, and he trusted his feelings. Letting the Force sharpen his senses, he drew his own weapons. Just like on the _Sharp Turn_ some days before, he also felt some grim parody of sweet relief. _Of course_ things couldn't go smoothly for once… but at least this time the mayhem hadn't kept him waiting.

* * *

Kaevee's eyes darted from tree to tree, her heart racing as the air and the fog seemed to whisper, _Danger, danger, danger…_ The words of her mantra played across her lips silently as she tried to focus. The Force came to her, and she cast her sight beyond sight ahead, straining a bit before she sensed them. Not quite the assailants themselves, but their intentions—greedy, hearty, violent thoughts. The hearing beyond her ears told her, briefly, of careful steps being taken over the soft ground. "Atton, they're in front of us!" she blurted.

"No, they're _behind_ us!" cried Cole.

That sent a jolt through Kaevee, and she and Atton turned in time to see humanoid figures—a whole group of them, just barely visible in the distant fog. There was a single flash of light before one of them, followed by a delayed _whump_, and Atton thrust out a hand as though to catch whatever was hurtling toward them. Only when the projectile slowed down enough to be seen and bounced to the ground some twenty feet away did it register to Kaevee that the pilot had used the Force to alter its trajectory; but by then their whole group was bounding into the woods, Cole snapping off a few random shots over his shoulder. Floating along with them, the Remote also pitched in with a small onboard blaster.

The grenade didn't go off quite like Kaevee expected it to—a warbling hiss followed by a tremendous _pop_ as the surrounding area was sprayed with huge, thick globs of bright blue adhesive. Though well out of its range, she fancied she saw tiny globs of the stuff shoot past her head.

Atton led the way to a spot between two fallen tree trunks that provided some cover from the front and behind. As Kaevee and Cole hunkered with him there, electric blue-white energy bolts sliced out from the deeper shade of the woods ahead. Several of the blasts hit their cover or nearby trees, hissing or fizzling into the mossy bark without leaving burns; they had to be stun weapons of some kind, but that was hardly a consolation.

The incoming fire intensified, and Atton shouted over the noise. "They're comin' at us from both sides! You three stay here—focus on the ones in the forest, and don't let them surround us! I'm gonna take care of our back!"

Listening closely, Kaevee tried not to gag as a sudden stench that had to be from the adhesive grenade rolled over them. It was something like spilled paint.

"Who the hell are they?!" Cole shouted, his wild eyes watching the stun bolts fly overhead.

"I dunno—let's kill 'em and find out! I'll get you started!" Saying this, the pilot took out a grenade of his own and for some reason kissed it before lobbing it into the woods. Then he went to cover their back.

With a jolt of terror and embarrassment, Kaevee realized that her blaster was still in her pocket. As she drew it, she heard Atton's grenade hit the ground with a surprisingly loud thud, cutting off as it did so the flurry of stun laser fire and prompting a panicked shout.

The explosion was like a single, clean thunderclap, followed by a crackle of raining earth. The horrible sound made Kaevee's ears ring and sent her shuddering to the ground. She put her hands over her head, afraid that the ceiling of the Matale's garage would collapse on her. Seconds passed, and the resuming tumult of laser fire brought her back to the present.

The other thing that brought her back was the rough impact of a boot against her shoulder. "GET UP AND HELP ME, YOU LITTLE—"

Not understanding the term at the end of Cole's utterance, Kaevee feverishly crawled up to the fallen trunk, flattened herself against it, and took a peek over its edge. Incoming stun bolts showered their position, seeming to come from the whole width of the landscape before them, splintering the stillness of the fog and shade. A few feet to her left, Cole and the Remote were both returning fire.

Between the dazzle of light and the near-misses that kept making her duck back behind the trunk, Kaevee couldn't even begin to pick any of their attackers out of the frenetic scenery. Her Force sense seemed ragged, splintered. But before indecision could paralyze her, she was taken over by a nerve-charging, shrieking need to do something, _anything_, so she just started firing into the woods and prayed that the Force would guide her. She pulled the trigger as fast as she could, trying with Cole and the Remote to hold back the storm of blue-white bolts with their spattering of red fire.

At random, she ducked behind cover for a few seconds at a time before popping back up to return more fire. Occasionally a stun shot or two would flash overhead from behind, but she ignored those; they were Atton's problem to solve. Time passed—how much time was ambiguous—but Kaevee could tell the attackers were coming closer. She started glimpsing humanoid shapes as they scampered between trees and bushes. Their features were uncertain, but two that she saw close together stood out—a comical pair, one was of monstrous size and stature, while the other was perhaps five feet tall and rather squat.

Kaevee tried to focus, taking a second to aim. Her first shot missed the big one's head, but sent him and his diminutive partner behind cover. Her next ones put burning spirals into nearby trees and sent chunks of bark flying.

A blue-white bolt came at her at an angle off from the left, blinking right past her face and over her right shoulder so close that she could have caught it with her tongue. Feeling stunned nonetheless, she dropped down and pressed her back against the trunk, her eyes wide, her pistol hand shaking. Aside from that of adhesive, the air was thick with a steaming, vaguely electric sort of smell.

As she waited for her wits to come back, Kaevee looked at the other trunk across from her—at least they had that to cover their backs. She was just about to resume her position when she did a double-take and realized that Atton was nowhere to be seen. For that matter, so was her laigrek.

But from the direction of the forest's edge she continued to hear the crackling din of stun bolts, as well as the unsteady, rippling _zroom_ of a lightsaber.

* * *

In order to commence with the monumentally stupid task of leaving his cover and charging a group of seven ranged attackers, Atton reflexively switched off the pazaak game that was usually playing by itself in his head. He had found that, while that exercise protected his thoughts from prying telepathic eyes, it also reduced his own ability to channel the Force to his full potential. He didn't know why it worked this way for him. All that mattered was the fact that he needed every last bit of Force mana that he could dredge up.

Staying crouched behind the trunk, he regarded the hatred that stood in his center like a stone monument—naked, plain, solid. Then he took a breath, held it, and thought about what he hated and why. Images flashed before his mind's eye as fast as energy bolts flashed over his head. There was the old witch leering at him through the shimmering barriers of the force cages in the ice academy on Telos. There was Mical as Atton had last seen him, with blood trickling into his eyes, which were wild and frenzied to the point of monstrousness. There was that one Jedi who had come looking for him all those years ago, with her lying compassion that he had never managed to burn, slice, or beat out of her.

He let out his breath, and the Force rushed over him like a crashing wave that carried him in a leap over the trunk and set him at a dead run toward the tree line. Distantly, he felt a ripple of astonishment that coincided with a brief lull in the incoming barrage of stun shots. The attackers, who had been concerned with little more than laying down suppressing fire, were not sure what to make of the idiocy of one of their targets running straight at them.

Content to be seen as an idiot, Atton zig-zagged between a few trees and bushes, and when the stun bolts started to catch up with him, he had his lightsaber out, deflecting them in all directions. He had recognized the weapons pretty quickly. High-quality, expensive stunners based on an Arkanian design, they could drop anything as big as a Herglic in one shot. A little-known drawback, though, was that they fired regular-shaped bolts instead of the better-known, wide-spread rings that less fancy stun blasters were known for.

Hence, Atton's lightsaber was able to slap them aside with ease. Before they could all focus their fire, he Force-leaped again, clearing a thicket that would have stopped him cold and landing in a crouch right in front of one of the mercenaries—or whatever they were. The poor sod was an unarmored Human, and Atton's acrobatic prowess had so impressed him that he ran backwards into a nearby tree, clutching his stun carbine to his chest as though fearing he would drop it.

Time had slowed down just a bit, giving Atton an extended microsecond in which to take in the astonished look on the man's face. One of the only things he had left to live for was to find that look, to taste the joy of turning the tables on people. With a hearty grin, he skipped right up to the man and swung, cutting him, his carbine, and the tree behind him in two. The saber's fizzling blade gave a loud _hiss_ as it went through the thick, wet moss covering the bark.

The other mercenaries were already tracking him. As his first kill fell, Atton crouched, letting a volley of stun bolts pass harmlessly over him. Meanwhile, the maimed tree let out a moan as it began to lean. He took hold of it with his mind and gave it a good push to his right, toward where the shots were coming from. There was a cacophony of crackling from overhead as the tree tore through its neighbors' branches before crashing beautifully to the ground. It didn't land on anyone, but near its crown he saw three beings leap aside—a Quarren, a Rodian, and another Human.

Spotting Atton as he jogged their way, the three spread out, firing rapidly in the hopes of catching him in crossfire. Rather than reflecting their stun shots back at them, he lazily sent them skyward, simultaneously drawing his pistol and returning fire the way he preferred—lethally. One bolt put a glowing scarlet hole through the Quarren's head. Another went through the Rodian's upper arm. The alien howled, his antennae practically jumping off his head as he fell. The Human bravely honored their sacrifice by turning around and bolting.

Atton drew a bead on the man's back, but the Force gave him pause. He whirled toward the tree he had cut down as two more mercs popped up from behind it, a three-eyed Gran and a bulb-headed, blue-skinned Duros. Half by reflex, he snapped off a shot at the first alien's head, which jolted backward as he fell limply out of sight.

For no particular reason, Atton felt like taking a breather, so he sidestepped and took cover. Flattened against a tree, he reached out, sensing the Duros' focus on him, as well as the Human from before and another merc tracing a wide circle around his position. He noted the Rodian, whimpering as he tried to crawl away from the battlefield, as well as the Gran, who was also wounded but still alive.

_Still alive? I'll need to fix that,_ he thought.

The sound of a new weapon firing added itself to the mayhem of the forest. It was harder, more kinetic. He felt shots slamming into the tree behind him, and a few zipped past into the woods, silver orbs followed by trails of rings—sonic blasts. Now those he couldn't deflect. Good thing he was behind cover, then.

Not that his saber didn't still have its uses. He took a step forward and spun round, slicing through the tree at a sharp downward angle. Though it needed no encouragement to come crashing down, it sadly fell wide of the Duros, sending him running instead of squashing him beneath it.

Incoming fire from behind brought Atton's attention to the other two mercs. The Human from before was crouched and spraying, hardly even aiming. Atton recognized it as a cheap diversion tactic in time to hear a familiar mechanical _whump_, and to see another glop grenade come bouncing low over the ground toward his feet.

The fuel of Atton's anger had already burned itself out; now it was the various emotions best summarized by an expression such as, _Oh, frack,_ that sent him flying in another Forceful leap to the side. He landed just outside of the blast radius, screwing up his face in protest against the awful smell as the grenade burst.

From behind him came the noise of a similar explosion—and voices—and stray stun bolts continued to spray through the forest. So Cole and the kid were still fighting. That was good, but the odds were against them, and Atton was taking too long on his end of things.

A bubble of sonic energy fizzled by, too close for him to feel good about it. As he fired at its origin while still deflecting stun shots with his saber, a pin-width glimmer of dull light slashed over the fog. The slight kick of impact against Atton's chest, followed by a dull pain like the sting of a firebee, told him immediately that it was a toxic dart of some kind. Whoever had fired it was a good shot. If it had hit him in the side, the armorply underlayment in his jacket would have stopped it.

_Ah, wonderful,_ he thought, slightly consoled by the probability that it was only going to knock him out, rather than kill him. But either way, he was fighting on borrowed time. A minute, thirty seconds?

He continued firing.

* * *

With the mercenaries scurrying closer, tree by tree, the firefight grew only more hair-raising and desperate as it went on. Slowing them down with their frantic spurts of suppressing fire seemed all that Kaevee, Cole, and the Remote could do. The big one Kavee had spotted before turned out to be a grayish-red Trandoshan, and since he seemed the easiest target, she tried to focus on hitting him, but in the chaos of the firefight she couldn't tell if her closer shots were just grazing his armor or else missing him entirely.

She was in the middle of pinning the alien behind a tree with a barrage of blasts when she heard an unfamiliar male voice over the melee. "Obligatory Appeal," it bellowed in a rough, contemptuous accent, "You are sorely outgunned! I urge you, throw down your weapons and surrender, and you will not be damaged until later!"

This somewhat theatrical challenge came from barely a stone's throw away, where another assailant emerged from cover. It was a tall, wicked-looking battle droid with an armored charcoal-black chassis and narrow photoreceptors that glowed icy blue. It plodded toward them in a straight line, inexplicably neglecting to raise either of the stun carbines it was carrying.

Cole wasted no time and fired at the droid, followed soon by Kaevee and the Remote. To their dismay, their flurry of bolts hit it dead center, only to vanish in flame-colored splashes of light. The automaton had an on-board deflector shield, and apparently one strong enough that it felt secure in wasting some of its power. It went on for several more paces before returning fire, sending Kaevee and Cole down behind cover again with a thick barrage of stun blasts.

The spacer pounded a fist against the trunk, cursing frantically. Kaevee was no less aggrieved, and in fact felt stupid for having listened to Atton, staying put with her measly blaster pistol like some random trooper—but she moved on from that quickly. Steeling herself, she called on the Force and jumped up, thrusting a hand forward. The battle droid flew up and back, soaring past its previous hiding spot, then ricocheting off one tree and into another before falling to the ground in a heap.

Several of the mercenaries paused to gawk at what had become of their mechanical ally. Not knowing where all the attackers were but also not wanting to waste the moment, Kaevee lashed out again and again, sending wide bursts of power that blasted sections of earth into the air and tore saplings from their roots. She sent the Trandoshan stumbling backward as the ground in front of him exploded. Off to her right she spotted the small one she had glimpsed earlier—an alien of some kind wearing a cloak and a breath mask with huge, bug-eyed lenses. With a sweep of her arm, Kaevee ripped the stun carbine out of the little alien's grasp and sent him tumbling.

To the left, out the corner of her eye, she saw a white face appear and disappear among some bushes. Cole sent a laser bolt that way, then cursed as a heavy metallic _thud_ sounded right behind him and Kaevee. Knowing well enough what it meant, they threw themselves over the trunk, landing roughly just on the other side half a second before the adhesive grenade went off, its sound nearly deafening at such close range. A brief shower of gunk splattered on Kaevee's back and into her hair. Nauseated by the newly tripled stench, her ears ringing, she crawled blindly into the woods.

She crossed some yards before realizing that she had lost her blaster. Her search was interrupted by a scream, panicked and drawn-out, and her eyes were drawn to a humanoid figure some distance away, dropping his weapon and failing his arms; Kaevee couldn't tell his species because his clothes had caught fire. The man threw himself to the mud and began to roll back and forth, but Kaevee's laigrek—which, she realized, was what had set him on fire—squirmed atop him and plunged its mandibles into his body.

No sooner had the man gone still than another mercenary showed herself—a female Human with a large backpack, she slid out from behind a tree, and two shots from her stun pistol sent the laigrek sprawling onto its side. Just behind the mercenary, the battle droid was getting back to its feet. It was looking directly at Kaevee and yelling something, but with her hearing still half-gone, she couldn't understand the words.

The Padawan blanched, an icy dread spreading out from her heart. She had already used most of her Force strength, and now she was weaponless, exposed, and alone—or was she? Where was Atton? And—

She twisted around to see that the Trandoshan had somehow snuck up on Cole. As she watched in horror, the alien landed a punch to his gut that bent him over and made him drop his weapon, then lifted him off the ground by his jacket. The spacer kicked furiously, uselessly, as the Trandoshan cackled, his dagger-toothed mouth spewing Cole with saliva. Finally the alien threw him bodily into the air, slamming him to the ground right in front of Kaevee.

Kaevee felt a twinge of realization that she had seen this particular Trandoshan before, but in an instant it was buried as rage and loathing boiled over within her. She reached for Cole's fallen blaster, thinking maybe she had just enough strength left to grab it with the Force.

The next thing she knew, though, she was lying on her back, her right arm and side enveloped in a searing, rippling pain that sent her into convulsions. Amidst floating dark spots, she saw the little masked alien standing over her, haughtily twirling a Bothan stun stick in one hand. Yet her hearing was starting to come back.

Other mercenaries came into view. A chalky white-skinned Near-Human with black facial tattoos stood over Cole, eying him for a moment before shooting him with his stun blaster. The woman with the backpack reappeared, holding the Remote in both hands. She dropped the inert droid in the mud near Kaevee, who saw a restraining bolt lodged in its hull.

The black-hulled battle droid was approaching, preceded by a dark-skinned man whose bald head was crowned with silver horns. Kaevee recognized him as she did the Trandoshan; both had been in the spaceport on Ord Lonesome.

The horned man grinned at the little masked alien and said, "Nice work, Shorty."

Not a second later there was a flash of red light, and he was falling face-first to the ground, a glowing fist-sized pit having opened in his back. Scattering like roachrats, his accomplices traded fire with a hovering probe droid that clutched a blaster pistol in one of its spidery appendages. X-C88 began to strafe, concentrating on the battle droid, but the latter's shield was still plenty operational.

It was the woman with the backpack who finished it. Drawing a bulky, wide-barreled pistol, she aimed carefully before firing a single, thick pulse of blue light. The ion blast struck the droid and dispersed across its body and arms, wreathing it in arcs of electricity for several seconds before it thumped to the ground, disabled.

There was a still moment, as though the entire scene was holding its breath; then mercenaries cursed and bantered in multiple languages. Kaevee noticed that she was moving. The Trandoshan had grabbed her and Cole by their collars, one in each clawed hand, and started dragging them somewhere. They passed the horned man's body, where the woman with the backpack was squatting and shaking her head despondently. When Kaevee was close enough, the woman glared and spat on her, muttering, "Stang it all."

Preoccupied as she was by the ordeal of breathing, the Padawan felt a wave of dread crash over her when she realized that the forest had fallen silent except for a warbling, monotonous, wailing voice. One of the aliens was wounded, she guessed.

The Trandoshan deposited her and Cole in a slightly more open patch of forest ground where the mercenaries had started to gather, milling about and fiddling with their weapons.

Still flat on her back, Kaevee turned her head to look around, though even that slight movement hurt enough to make her eyes water. One mercenary who she hadn't noticed before caught her attention: a slender Human woman in tight black leather, ornamented with bandoliers of grenades, rockets, and blaster cartridges, and a bulky projectile launcher on her right forearm. Her hair, an unnatural bloody red, was somewhat frazzled, but looked as though it was meant to fall smoothly on either side of her head. She held a cigarette to her lips, keeping it pinioned between two fingers as though wary that it might try to escape. Her face was worn and young, her expression almost blissful. As the woman with the backpack stomped up to her, she let out a cloud of smoke in a pleasant sigh and asked, "Where's Jeller?"

"Dead. Their other droid shot him in the back."

The red-haired woman shrugged. "Guess that's four we lost."

Overwhelmed with fear, pain, and disgust, Kaevee tried and failed to keep herself from shaking. She could hear the deep-voiced, alien cry continuing somewhere in the background. The Trandoshan reappeared, depositing another body nearby, and her heart sank even deeper. It was Atton, unconscious and stripped of his weapons.

"Rielly," the red-haired woman was saying, "stop giving me that look. _You're_ supposed to be the doctor here… Hossk, get 'em restrained. And hey, that girl's still awake."

The reptilian grunted as he produced a pair of binders, then used a foot to roll Atton over. Glancing at Kaevee, he barked, "_Shorty!_ Get over _here!_"

Kaevee only had enough time to despairingly wonder where Atris was before the little alien appeared before her again. He tapped the stun stick against her forehead, and the world went dark.

* * *

When Atton was aware of himself again, he resented the fact that the cause of the screaming pain in his forehead wasn't a hangover. Binders held his feet together, as well as his hands behind his back. Noticing that his face was pressed against the dirt, he decided to stay still, waiting for his strength to come back, bit by bit. It would come, he told himself, and he'd been in tight spots before. This was nothing more than a new round of pazaak.

"Jo-Gaisse, for the _last time…_" someone was saying in Huttese.

A deep alien voice interrupted in Basic, quaking with pain and indignation. "He shot off my eye!" the voice wailed. "He _shot off_ my _eye!_"

_Just his eye,_ thought Atton bitterly. _I _am _getting rusty… I thought I could aim better than that._ He had also thought he was stronger in the Force than he was, apparently…

"Rielly, I _told_ you to give him a stimpack," some woman snapped.

"I gave him _two_," retorted another.

The first voice was slick and as sharp as a brand-new vibro-knife. As Atton realized that it sounded familiar, someone grabbed him from behind and yanked him up onto his knees.

At least, he _thought_ he was upright. He knew abstractly that gravity had to still be working as normal, but there was an overpowering sensation that Daluuj's ground had become a vertical wall that he was somehow stuck to, as though by a magnet, along with the nearby people. They were back in the clearing where the _Ebon Hawk_ still sat—he could see it out the corner of his eye—but even though the trees were a good distance off, they seemed to have swelled to gigantic proportions, like the wroshyrs of Kashyyyk. At random he selected one and tried to follow its length as it burst sideways out of the ground and seemed to soar into the lopsided abyss of the sky. The effort made his stomach coil, and he shut his eyes. Beneath him, he felt the wall that was the ground tilt back and forth slowly, like a planet-sized see-saw, and he remembered getting hit with the dart. _They drugged me. Right. Take it easy. Totals are… fracked to twenty._

He steeled himself with a few deep breaths before opening his eyes again. The vertigo seemed lessened, but he had no doubt that it wouldn't take much to excite it again. He very carefully had a look around. The woods formed a tight black circle around them and crackled with invisible bugs and critters. The drizzling sky seemed a few shades darker than before, and the fog, clinging low to the ground, had thickened.

Kaevee and Cole were kneeling in a row to his left, similarly restrained. In a pile not far away lay the two droids, disabled and useless, the laigrek—why'd they drag that thing all this way?—and Atris. The old woman must have been on her way to help, he supposed. Atton wondered if the old woman had sent the distress signal, for whatever good that would do. Even if she had tried, maybe the ship's transmitter had been jammed, like their comlinks.

Not far away was Jo-Gaisse, the Gran, cursing and moaning as he stomped around. One bulky, crusted hand was cupped over the little stump of charred flesh where one of his three eyestalks had been. His other hand was wildly swinging about, like he was boxing with a phantom. A female Human with a large backpack was hovering in front of him, keeping just outside the range of his aimless punches. The Rodian that Atton had wounded stood off to the side spectating, chittering to himself and clutching a kolto patch to his arm.

The rest of the mercs were standing guard over the prisoners. To Atton's right there was the brutish, odd-colored Trandoshan, and past him a thin, red-haired woman in black leather, smoking what remained of a cigarette. The diminutive Gand stood on the other side of Cole, and the Duros paced behind them. A stone's throw past him, in front of the closed ramp of the _Ebon Hawk_, there stood the HK droid and two other mercs, a Bpfasshi and another Human.

Atton wasn't in the best state of mind—or the mood—to size up a situation tactically, but to the degree that he was able, he could see there was no chance of escape at this juncture, even with some of the mercs not minding the prisoners. He couldn't help but notice that they toted blasters and vibroblades of various sizes in addition to the stun weapons they had been using—and the redhead in particular had a very nasty-looking projectile launcher strapped to her right forearm. Atton wasn't sure he could use the Force at all while drugged, not to mention right after waking up from a stun blast, but even if he could, supposing he busted one set of his restraints or telekinetically snapped one merc's neck, he'd get blasted or stunned before he could do anything else.

His calculations were interrupted when the redhead abruptly headed for the distraught Gran. "One side, Rielly," she said, her familiar voice laced with venom. "Here, _this'll_ stop the pain." Then, before anyone else could move, she drew a stun pistol and dropped the Gran with a shot to the head. The Rodian guffawed hysterically for a moment.

Ignoring Rielly's frustrated glare, the redhead turned about, replacing her weapon. As she brought the cigarette back to her mouth, she offered Atton a wry smile, like they were sharing an inside joke. Atton stared back until it finally clicked.

Aside from his addled mind, it was a few changed details that had thrown him at first. Her hair wasn't natural red anymore—it was more like fresh blood now. And he missed the bare midriff—in its place the woman had more practical garments, accommodating the bandoliers and extra weapons that she wore like Core World nobles wore jewelry.

_No way,_ he thought. _No fragging way._

Mira regarded the assassin droid and its two partners as they returned from the ship. "No luck?"

"Answer: It did not accept the access code you suggested. Obviously, it has been changed."

"Eh, it was worth a try, HK. Just watch the perimeter for now. Sarz, Roy—" She gestured at the Rodian. "—take Boris back to the ship and bring it over."

"What about him?" asked the Bpfasshi, indicating Jo-Gaisse.

Mira exhaled a small cloud, then flicked the last bit of her cigarette onto the unconscious Gran's back. "We'll get him later," she said. As her three underlings disappeared into the woods, she turned toward the prisoners and took them in with a keen, ill-boding smile that Atton couldn't recall ever seeing her wear before.


	18. Bounty Hunters

The feeling that Kaevee's brain was trying to escape from her skull came and went in jolts of intensity, like a second heart thundering inside her head. Fighting just to keep from screaming, she leaned over to her right and choked, "Atton… what do we do?"

He took a minute to answer. There was something wrong with him—he swayed a little, and his face was terribly pale. "Nothing," he answered out the corner of his mouth. "They drugged me… Not gonna be much help. We'll have to wait it out. Just stay calm—and no matter what happens, don't tell them _anything._ You got that?"

There was a growl from the Trandoshan guard, Hossk, who loomed nearby, and the pilot put his head down innocently.

Kaevee failed to stifle a sob, bewildered by the idea that she could make herself calm just she was _told_ to. But she tried anyway…

_I am a Jedi… The Force… is with me…_

If anything, though, the effort it took to recite her mantra only seemed to make the pain more acute. Maybe if she recited it even slower, it would be easier.

She was sidetracked when the red-haired woman—apparently the ringleader—walked up to Atton, eying him with self-satisfied contempt. "I'll be damned. Atton Rand. And the _Ebon Hawk_. Small galaxy, huh? How you been?"

Atton dragged his eyes up to meet the woman's. "Never been better, Mira."

Mira laughed and hooked her thumbs through her belt. Diminutive and almost gaunt, she hardly looked imposing compared to her rough-edged, motley underlings, notwithstanding the arsenal of weapons she was wearing. But her smile, her stance, everything about her made Kaevee's skin crawl.

_Scum._ That's what Mira was, like the mercenaries and raiders back on Dantooine. Kaevee had always hated them even more than the salvagers; not just thieves, they lived to make victims out of innocent people, people like Shen Matale.

Or people like Kaevee.

"You know each other?" That was Cole, craning his neck in their direction.

Mira nodded at the _Ebon Hawk_. "We worked together—on that ship, actually, years ago."

"We ran into some of you on Ord Lonesome," Atton put in, looking at Hossk.

The alien grinned daggers back at him. In his usual stilted Basic he replied, "Yesss, _we_ did. _A_ very _pleasss_-ant con-_ver _sss_ation_."

"Uh-huh," said the pilot, looking back to Mira. "So why've you been chasing us? Just couldn't wait to see me again, is that it?"

The bounty hunter's amusement faded. "Um, no. Definitely not that. It's just business. We'd already spent a week looking for you before Lossway. Somebody's willing to pay top cred for that ship and her crew."

A few meters behind her stood the battle droid, facing the woods. "Disgruntled Interjection," it announced over its shoulder. "With the unfortunate demand that the aforementioned organics be delivered alive and in optimal functioning status, which runs contrary to my principled objections and my primary programming, and—"

"_Shut_ up and _ssstand_ guard!" barked the Trandoshan.

"Mocking Query…"

Atton spoke over whatever the droid blathered next. "Well, it's flattering to have people interested in us… Who is it?"

The bounty hunter shook her head. "Oh, somebody. You'll get to meet him soon enough. But he might throw in a bonus if I'm able to give him any info right off the bat. Apparently, nobody's seen the _Ebon Hawk_ in four or five years. So, you feel like telling me what you're up to, where you've been?"

"Not really."

Mira's eyes flashed toward the other prisoners. "You know, I'm really not asking… I'm willing to bet, though, that if you were still flying for Meetra, she'd be here with you."

"We went our separate ways."

"Hm, like I did."

"No," Atton said, with an edge in his voice. "Not like you did."

"And…?"

Kaevee was listening closely. Though she knew better, she was no less interested in the conversation than their interrogator was, in spite of the fact that the more she learned of Atton's past, willingly or not, the more disturbing she found it. It was no wonder Meetra Surik was on the dark side, if she'd had people like this Mira following her.

"Oh, it's okay, you don't need to tell me. I'm sure it's painful," the bounty hunter drawled, inclining her head in mock sympathy. "I mean, me, _I_ left because I wasn't getting paid. Who knew Sith Lords don't make the best clients? But here you are now, with her ship—without her." When Atton didn't answer, she gave Kaevee a sideways look. "How about you? You feel like sharing your feelings, Jedi?"

Kaevee only glared, feeling like the blood in her head was close to boiling, but Mira effortlessly absorbed her anger.

"Righteously silent, huh? That's kind of cute. Too bad the bounty on your kind was taken down. It's been a long time since there was even a rumor of somebody seeing a Jedi." She paused to look pointedly at Cole, then waved a hand toward him. "Oh, I know _he's_ useless. Just in the wrong place at the wrong time. I'm surprised you kept him."

"Mother of _Star's End,_ Atton!" exploded Cole so suddenly that Kaevee and the nearby guard, the alien called Shorty, both flinched. "She your girlfriend, or _what?_ She talks as much as _you_ do."

The pilot didn't look at him. "Don't insult me."

There was a snicker from the bulb-headed Duros who guarded them from behind. The spacer twisted around and said to him, "Hey, buddy, you got another stun bolt for me? Please? I could _really_ go for a nap." Surprisingly, a sort of negotiation seemed to ensue, with both of them speaking in some language that sounded a little like Bocce.

All the while Mira stood motionless, her cheeks reddening, her easy demeanor having utterly evaporated. Kaevee didn't want to speak, move, or do anything else but wait for her head to stop splitting, but she was terrified to find out what would happen if the bounty hunter was provoked even further. No one was coming to save them, and even Atton apparently couldn't do anything—he looked almost like he'd fallen asleep there on his knees.

Gritting her teeth, Kaevee leaned toward the spacer and tried to interrupt him. "Cole, please be quiet. Just stop—"

"Tell _me_ to stop?!" he retorted excitedly. He was losing his mind again, like he had aboard the _Sharp Turn_. "Why don't _you_ stop, _all_ of you!? That schutta blew up my damn ship—"

"Deeras," said Mira, her voice suddenly like steel, "bring him here."

The Duros looked disappointed, but he smacked his pistol into the side of Cole's head, then dragged him by the collar and left him in front of Mira. Reflexively, Kaevee tried to grab the alien with the Force, but it only made her head go to pieces again and black spots drift before her eyes. Gasping against the pain, she winced, willing her vision to clear.

As Mira's hand went to her belt and came away with a gleaming little knife, Shorty chittered something excitedly—his language was even stranger than the Duros'—and Hossk took a step toward her. "What _are_ you doing?" he rasped. "Our _client_ sssaid _not_ to harm the _crew_ of the _Ebon_—"

"Yeah, I remember, but he's not _part_ of the crew. He's just some starport trash they picked up by mistake, and—" She caught herself before saying a name. "Nobody knows he was _on_ the _Ebon Hawk_ anyway, so I say he's fair game."

After taking a few seconds to consider it, the Trandoshan nodded and relaxed. The woman with the backpack, Rielly, who had been watching from beside the unconscious Gran, wordlessly turned her back on the scene. Near her stood the droid, its head cocked to keep one icy photoreceptor on the grim episode at the center of the group.

Mira pointed her knife first at Kaevee, then at Cole, who was trying to get back onto his knees. "Listen up, kid, this is how it's gonna work. I know Atton's a brick wall, but you, I've got a good feeling about you. A real empathetic type, I bet."

Her binders biting into her wrists, Kaevee choked, "Atton, do something." But the pilot didn't seem to hear her. He'd been drugged; maybe he _had_ lost consciousness. _No matter what happens,_ he had said, _don't tell them anything._

The bounty hunter went on, her tone horrifically casual. "Yeah, it's written all over you. I can read your mind—maybe _I_ should be a Jedi. Don't like seeing blood? Then start talking."

Cole looked up at her, his bruised face screwed up in a grimace, but his voice was shuddering strangely… Was he _laughing?_ "Listen, sweetheart. You wanna have a good time, why don't you untie me and give _me_ a knife? I promise I—" Mira brought a boot down on his back, slamming him flat against the mud.

"STOP IT!" Kaevee heard herself cry.

The bounty hunter got down on one knee and jerked Cole's head up by a fistful of his hair. The knife drifted toward his face. "Tell me a story, Jedi. Tell me something right now, or it'll be an eye."

She kept speaking, and Cole seemed to be saying something too, but Kaevee couldn't process words anymore, and at that moment she broke. She felt or seemed to feel an actual, physical rupture inside her chest and something searing-hot start to leak out into the rest of her body. For a flickering moment she wanted to talk, wanted to tell Mira something, anything, to stop what was happening, but her throat had closed, and she quaked as she fought to breathe. Her eyes were burning. She strained against her binders even as blood started flowing onto her hands, and she begged the Force, like she'd never begged it for anything in her life, to be able to take Mira's throat in her mental grip and squeeze.

The Force answered her. She felt its power coming back to her in a slow, molten trickle, but she needed more, and she needed it _now_. All the feeling in her head had turned into a giant, widening wound, like a huge spike was being driven through it, and a thickening ring of darkness lapped around the edge of her vision.

Which made the sudden appearance of light in the background all the more startling. It was the battle droid, fitfully jerking back and forth as arcs of deep blue lightning swept across its chassis. As Mira and the others turned in surprise, Kaevee sagged, wheezing and sobbing, her throat suddenly open again, and the Force abandoned her entirely.

A second ion blast sliced out from the darkness of the forest and into the droid's midsection. Realizing they were under attack, the bounty hunters exploded into motion, drawing their weapons—not the stun ones— and leveling them at the trees. They all froze in place, however, at the sound of a booming, amplified voice.

"_FREEZE! DROP YOUR WEAPONS!_ _In the name of the Galactic Senate, you are all under arrest! You are surrounded, and your accomplices are in our custody!_"

There was a moment of dead silence as the bounty hunters obeyed the first command, trading twitchy, frantic looks. The battle droid remained on its feet, but its arms and head sagged, and its photoreceptors were dark.

Then Mira slapped the side of the launcher on her wrist; the heavy _whump_ and the splintering explosion at the tree line were almost simultaneous. As the bounty hunters sprayed blaster fire at their unseen adversaries, Kaevee and Atton threw themselves against the ground just in time for the clearing to be flooded with ring-shaped stun bolts.

In mere seconds it was over. There were a few distant shouts, and two dozen men emerged from the woods, their dark red vests and armor identifying them as Republic soldiers. They swarmed into the clearing, their rifles lowered but at the ready. One of them approached the disabled battle droid, smiled like a little boy, and knocked it over with the butt of his rifle.

An officer stood in the middle of the scene, looking this way and that as he bellowed into a comlink. "We have them, sir. The area's secure. No casualties. You can bring the transport over."

Her head swimming, Kaevee continued to shudder uncontrollably as she lay sprawled on her side, helpless. One of the soldiers gave her a pitying look as he crouched down and started fiddling with her restraints. "Hang on, kid. We're gettin' you outta here."

Using the last ounce of her strength, Kaevee raised her head as though to look at him—then, as though thinking better of it, she let it fall to the ground and sleep swallowed her up at once.


	19. Detention

Atton wasn't sure whether it took hours or a whole day for the haze of the toxin he'd been hit with to wear off. In fact, it seemed to deepen for some length of time immediately following their rescue. Looking back, he remembered a brief ride in a shuttle, being uncuffed and recuffed multiple times, and spending some time in a bed in what had to be a medbay. There was a succession of unfamiliar faces, all serious and chiseled. Atton simply ignored them and nodded off as the nurses or medical droids or whatever they were prodded and scrubbed and patched him up. Spaced out though he was, he had enough presence of mind to remember that his plan didn't involve talking to grunts.

He snapped out of it pretty much just in time to be collected from the medbay by no less than six of those grunts, all sporting blaster carbines. The officer leading them stuck out like a huge, blistered thumb: a thick-nosed Humanoid with firebrick-red skin, pointed ears, and blackish horns curving back from his forehead. With neither sympathy nor harshness, he said, "Atton Rand? Glad to see you've come around. I'm Captain Winston Pollard. Come with me."

It was the most un-Devaronian name Atton had ever heard, but he decided not to make an issue of it as they marched him through a maze of steel corridors. It was all utilitarian, bright but not too bright, and the walls curved outward, which were all marks of a modern Republic capital ship. "Nice to meet you," he lied. "Any particular reason I'm under arrest?"

Walking directly ahead of him, the captain neither looked back nor slowed down. "Besides your unauthorized use of a Republic relay station, your ship is known to be personal property of the Sith Lord Meetra Surik. As such, you and your companions are being held for… questioning."

What was the pause for? "Well, I can understand that. We get mistaken for Sith Lords all the time. Could I speak to somebody in charge, though?"

The Devaronian glanced back at him. "You are aboard the _Valiant_. Admiral Opelle received your message… You'll have your meeting with him soon enough."

Atton ignored the undercurrent of annoyance in the Devaronian's words and considered this improbably good news. He recognized the name _Valiant_—it had been Opelle's flagship since the Jedi Civil War. And he was _on_ it? Already? "How did you guys find us?" he asked after a moment.

"A Republic informant spotted your ship at Ord Lonesome. Since then, we've been looking for you. One of our corvettes tailed you in the Albanin sector and followed you to Daluuj. But if one of your own hadn't sent a distress signal, they might not have found you in time."

Atton tried a few other questions, but Captain Pollard stonewalled him, saying the admiral would talk to him "soon enough." They came to a large blast door, where the Devaronian left without ceremony. The soldiers conducted Atton through the checkpoints and to an undecorated room housing four cube-shaped cells with transparisteel walls, set in two pairs across from one another. Each cell was ten feet by ten feet, featureless except for a cot in the center and, in the back wall, a door leading to a small refresher compartment.

Though pensive, hungry, and just a little drowsy, Atton couldn't help but perk up a bit as he was sealed in one of the cubes. Compared to most of the places he'd been locked up in his lifetime, and there had been many, this was royal treatment. Unimpressed as he was with the tight-lipped Devaronian, the assurances that Admiral Opelle was going to speak with the crew were encouraging. Atton's appeal must have at least caught his interest, if he hadn't yet turned them all over to a standard battery of interrogators.

In the cell to his right, Atris sat on the edge of her cot, her bowed head hidden as always by her hood, her cane resting against a knee. In the one across from him, Cole was lying down on his back, one arm across his eyes. Neither acknowledged his entrance.

Letting the silence be, Atton had a seat himself, and his mood quickly returned to its usual sourness as he remembered what had happened on Daluuj. Half a dozen unpleasant feelings settled in his gut—confusion, frustration, embarrassment. Had the shootout in the forest taken place a year ago, he probably would've smoked those bounty hunters. As it stood, though, things were different, and Atton had to admit that he and the rest of the crew would be dead, had Mira not been hired to take them alive.

He had lost something when he'd run from Meetra, and perhaps more than he'd been willing to admit.

Two voices from the past played back in his head—the first a certain Nautolan, the second his own.

_Remember the code. Remember the _code_, you ignoramus. Through passion you gain strength. Through strength you gain power…_

_Yeah, yeah…_

Just then the door opened, and a guard conducted Kaevee into the remaining cell. The kid was sort of cleaned up, her face washed, her hair straightened out—kind of—and she had on a long-sleeved gray shirt and pants. They'd probably needed to stun her to get her to part with those stained, worn-out Jedi robes.

She may have been cleaned up on the outside, but the inside of her head was a different story. Or so Atton judged from her twitching, blotchy red eyes, or how she was hugging herself like she was still on Belsavis. He allowed himself a moment to feel bad for her. He'd once insisted that it wasn't his job to save anyone from a rough landing, and he stood by that, but Daluuj had been a bit much for all of them. It wouldn't do any favors for Kaevee's development, or for the general cohesion of the crew. If only they'd been better equipped, or he had come up with a better plan…

Kaevee started pacing in her cell as soon as the guard was gone. "Atris, where were you?" she blurted. "We needed you."

The old woman raised her head, imperturbable as ever. "I did as Atton instructed me. I sent the distress signal. When the droid decided to go help you, I… followed. I thought, perhaps, that I could cause a diversion."

"But you didn't even get to us. How did they capture you?"

Atris held up her maimed hand. "Kaevee, I have not seen battle since I lost _this_. You are not the only one who is troubled by deficiencies."

The girl sighed, apparently unconvinced, but said nothing. Secretly, the extra-cynical part of Atton's mind also wondered how much there really was to Atris' excuse. He remembered some of the surprising things a certain other one-handed, decrepit hag had been capable of with the Force and the will to use it… But then again, Atris didn't seem to _have_ much of a will. Not since Meetra had been through with her.

Kaevee sat on her cot, torturing her hair with her fingers. "They told me this admiral's gonna talk to us eventually," she said to no one in particular. "What do they expect us to do in here?"

"What we're doing now," Cole put in without uncovering his eyes. "Rot."

"We can do both at once," Atton mused. "And we might get to talk with Opelle even sooner than I'd hoped." He turned his eyes toward the blank ceiling. "Never thought I'd be _glad_ for having gotten myself thrown in jail. Guess there's a first time for everything."

"I'm so happy to share this moment with you," the spacer mumbled.

Atton lay down on his cot, put his hands behind his head, and thought of pazaak.

* * *

Silence ensued. Naked, brutal, sterile, starship-in-transit silence. When Kaevee could no longer stand it, she went to the transparisteel wall between her cell and the next. "Cole?"

He sat up and squinted at her. "Yeah?"

She brought her hands together and picked at the kolto strips where the binders had been. "I'm sorry about what happened on Daluuj."

"That wasn't your fault, kid. We all should've been more careful…" He glanced pointedly toward Atton's cell. "…or come up with a better plan before we went in. Maybe our fearless leader should've made sure you knew how to handle yourself in a firefight. What were you supposed to do?"

As easygoing as his tone was, it did nothing for Kaevee. Even its condescension didn't affect her. "I'm a Jedi. I was supposed to save you."

With a strange, lopsided smile, he waved his hand. "You saved my life already. Once was enough."

She shook her head slightly, unable to understand why she seemed to be the only person who ever stayed upset about anything.

As if to emphasize that point, Atton spoke, though without sitting up. "You don't sound like yourself today, Cole. Where's the bitterness?"

"On vacation," Cole replied, stretching his arms. "Believe it or not, I'm just glad to be alive. Guess it's because I haven't got anything _except_ my life now—less things to worry about. My ship's gone, all my property destroyed, and now I'll be going to prison soon enough, thanks to you people…" He laughed. "Don't worry, the bitterness'll be back soon enough."

"Wait, why'd you be going to prison?" asked Kaevee.

"Why do you think? I'm not exactly a model citizen of the Republic. I'm sure you guys'll find some way out of this. After all, you're trying to save the galaxy or whatever. But that bounty hunter schutta, she was right about me—I'm not one of you. Once these people have me ID'd, we're going our separate hyperroutes."

Kaevee felt her temper starting to flare. For all his faults, Cole still deserved better than he'd gotten since crossing paths with the _Ebon Hawk_. "They can't do that! You're helping us try to stop the Sith!" She looked to the pilot. "We'll talk to the admiral! Won't we, Atton? We'll make him understand—"

The spacer cut her off. "Kid, I know you mean well, but stop pitying me, for stars' sake. I don't like it."

He didn't say it angrily—in fact, he just sounded tired—but it still hurt, and for more reasons than that he called her a kid. Did he think she didn't feel useless enough already? "Fine, I'll stop _pitying_ you," she said, and went and sat down again, facing the opposite wall.

There wasn't a wall chrono in sight, but it must have been evening, because the room soon dimmed itself to the level of dusk. Atton and Cole each sprawled on their cots with their jackets wrapped around their heads, which slightly muffled the one man's snoring and the other's mumbling and teeth-grinding. Striking a contrast, Atris sat cross-legged on the floor and continued her meditations there.

Still on her own cot, Kaevee pulled her knees up to her chest and slowly rocked back and forth, trying to tune out the sounds of the men sleeping but afraid of what she would end up thinking about if she actually succeeded. Whenever the events on Daluuj came back to her mind, she soon ended up remembering Mira, and her throat tightened. She didn't remember actually lying down, but she remembered sleeping at some point, because she remembered dreaming.

* * *

The place she found herself in was so impossibly pitch-dark that she felt disembodied, like she'd been thrown into the void between the galaxies. The only thing she could see was Emon suspended before her, sheathed in a harsh, white light that flickered slightly. His head was bowed, his eyes closed tight, his face frozen in an anguished grimace.

Like most of them, this dream was familiar, but it was also old, one that Kaevee had only experienced a few times—mostly in the weeks after the Enclave's destruction, and maybe once or twice since then. While it lasted, she would try to reach out and touch her Master or else talk to him, try to wake him up somehow. But in that darkness she didn't seem to have arms or hands, or a mouth—only eyes to watch him with.

And this shade of Emon was so clear, so vivid, that she noticed odd little details about him—like unfamiliar stubble forming on his chin, and a cut that ran down one cheek to the edge of his jaw. She would always cry after waking up from this. But it wasn't from grief so much as a crushing, tremendous anger, because as Emon's death receded into the past, Kaevee found that this nightmare of him was just as entrenched and real to her as her actual memories of him.

Experiencing it again, there was only one difference: during the dream, instead of trying to reach out to Emon and rouse him, Kaevee found that there was nothing she wanted less than for her Master to wake up and see her as she was.

* * *

In the morning there was an electronic chime as a slot opened in the back wall of each cell, admitting a tray holding a typical prison breakfast. The girl ate with frenzied, disturbing noises. Fortunately for Atton's sanity, however, she also ate fast.

His stomach was still grumbling when he put his empty tray back into the slot and watched it slide shut. Looking next door, he saw that Atris hadn't touched her meal and was still sitting on the floor, doing her mysteries-of-the-universe thing. "You going on a hunger strike, or what?"

The hag lifted her head slightly. "The Force gives me all I need," she said dreamily, clearly not entirely present.

"Is the Force gonna give me your breakfast, since I need it and you don't?"

Cole sanctioned the question with a guffaw. But the answer, of course, was no.

A few days passed, and they sat or dozed or paced about in that pristine little cell block. The hours snuck by, marked only by the meals. Sometimes they talked, but usually not. Everyone seemed to have found something to think about.

Atton counted cards, as always, and rehearsed the impending conversation with the admiral. He also spent time looking back on the incident at Daluuj—more than his own tactical blunders and deficiencies, though, he reflected on the bizarreness of encountering Mira again. Of all the hired guns in the galaxy to come after him, why her? If nothing else, it was more proof of what he'd said to Kaevee about trouble magnets.

He also would never have guessed that Mira'd end up leading a whole gang of her own. That didn't seem like her style. When she was part of the _Ebon Hawk_'s crew, Mira hadn't really warmed up to anybody—not even Meetra, who always seemed able to get what she wanted out of people.

After mentally replaying the firefight in the woods again, Atton found himself envying Mira's wrist launcher and made a mental note to try and get his hands on one for himself. It would come in handy.

At some point he noticed that Kaevee had started going for the same thing as Atris. But there was plainly a difference between them, even though the kid was sitting in the same posture: cross-legged, hands out. Her eyes weren't closed so much as _welded_ shut, her fingers kept twitching and curling, and from across the room he could see her lips moving.

Drawing on the Force, he inched his perception into the other cell. The aura there was thick with raw emotions—it was like water boiling on a stove. Rather than probing deeper, trying to disentangle the stuff and draw out Kaevee's actual thoughts, he simply augmented his hearing and caught what she kept whispering to herself.

"I am a _Jedi_, the Force is with me. _I_ am a _Jedi_, the Force is with me. I _am_ a Jedi, the Force…" It was like that—unsteady, haphazardly emphatic, distracted. She was trying to convince herself.

Atton returned to himself, watching her with just his eyes now, and once again wondered what he was going to do with her. He waited a moment, then went and tapped gently on the wall-window between his cell and Atris'. Considerate as ever, she immediately stood up and shuffled over.

He nodded at the girl and kept his voice down. "You teach her that?"

The old woman took a long look. "No. I did not."

"Have you been working on her?"

"She is a person, Atton—not a problem."

Arguably she was both, but he let that slide. He saw the real point here. It was the only point there had ever been with Kaevee. "She's gonna have to sort herself out," he observed, half to himself. And that would take time, more time than Atton might have…

He let the matter drop and wandered to the other window-wall. "Hey, Cole, let me ask you something."

Cole, who had been looking askance at Kaevee, gingerly stood up from his cot and approached. "Do we have to be quiet? Are we gonna wake her up?"

"I'm not asleep, and I'm not paying attention to you," Kaevee said forcefully.

The spacer rolled his eyes. "Okay, then, never mind. What do you want, Atton?"

"Just curious about something. When we were captured on Daluuj, and things were getting, uh, rough…"

"Yeah?"

"I dunno, I was just thinking about how you kept your head the whole time." Atton talked slowly, watching Cole as he listened—his fidgeting, his easygoing mask of a face.

"Surprised?"

"Almost impressed, actually. How when that bounty hunter was about to take a knife to you, you still didn't blab about what we're up to."

"Well, maybe I would have, if I actually knew anything about what you're up to…"

"But you didn't try to bargain with her or anything," Atton pointed out. "You even cracked a joke, while going through _that_, to protect our mission. Why?"

Cole stared at him a moment, blank-faced, then laughed in a way that wasn't quite sardonic, but came close. "Why? Because I'm stubborn, and you guys are all I've got. I don't like you, but you're all I've got. Besides, that schutta blew up my ship and got me into this mess in the first place. I mean, it's your fault too, and you're still not forgiven, but she's the one who actually did it. I wasn't gonna make her life easier if I had any choice in the matter."

Atton thought of pressing him, but realized that he was only asking questions out of boredom. And, again, he had things that he needed to sort out. "That's the spirit," he said, and left it at that.


	20. To Serve the Republic

Kaevee walked, following Atton as usual, as he, Atris, and Cole headed down a long corridor, boxed in by a dozen Republic soldiers. Relieved though she was that they were finally going to speak to the admiral, she had nothing kind to say about her stay aboard the _Valiant_. The Republic had saved them from the bounty hunters, only to immediately turn around and throw them in a brig. And even now, when they were surely about to be cleared of any wrongdoing, they were still being kept under guard like criminals. Though Kaevee knew now that it had been part of Atton's act when he'd talked about people forgetting what the Jedi had done for the galaxy, it was clear that what he'd said was true.

Down at the end of the hallway she spied a wide double-door where two men were speaking, a Human and the Devaronian officer who had brought Kaevee from her medbay to the brig days before. She couldn't recall his name, but remembered arguing with him about her laigrek during that brief walk; he'd explained that it was in "confinement," and refused to believe that she would keep it from causing trouble.

At the sound of their footsteps, the Devaronian glanced at them over his shoulder, made a final remark to his companion, and departed, nodding at the soldiers as they passed him.

He left behind a man in a crisp black and red uniform who could only have been the admiral himself. As the soldiers saluted him and lined up against the walls, their rifles against their shoulders, he stepped forward. Taking off his cap to reveal a thin crest of grey hair, he greeted each of the crew in turn with a shake of the hand, except for Atris, to whom he offered a bow from the neck, since her only hand was holding onto her cane. "Mister Rand, Mister Terrick. Miss Kaevee. Master Atris."

He was tall and athletically built, but old, and he looked old in the same way that people like Emon or Master Vandar did. His smile was subtly grand, even venerable, yet it seemed to tax him, drawing out the creases and lines that a lifetime of labors had left etched on his face. And the lingering presence of the guards did something to dampen the effect that his genial disposition may have had.

"I'm sorry to have kept you waiting, but I had no choice. Please come in." As the admiral said this, Kaevee was distracted by a long, jagged scar that went from his left eye back to his cheekbone. The eye in question, she noticed, did not move with the other one; she thought it must be a glass one.

Leaving the guards behind, the admiral led them into a spacious office carpeted in dark green and adorned with various amenities, knickknacks, and decorations. The most eye-catching were a trio of starship paintings that dominated the left wall. The first showed a battleship that had to have been from the Great Sith War. All across its thick-armored hull, clusters of observation decks, communications antennae, and turbolaser towers jutted up—and down—like the spires of a spaceborne cathedral.

The second vessel was the vaguely triangular, beaked figure of an _Interdictor_ cruiser. Though its gunmetal gray hull was trimmed with crimson and its command deck was emblazoned with the eight-spoked wheel of the Republic crest, Kaevee loathed the sight of it. The last ship was the familiar _Hammerhead _-class.

The crew sat down in four chairs facing an enormous dark wood desk. The admiral asked if anyone wanted something to drink. Kaevee requested water, and he brought her a shimmering glass thick with ice cubes. Halfway around his desk, he paused and looked intently at the pilot. "You're not the type I would've expected to turn up again, Mister Rand."

Atton met his gaze with a polite sort of interest, leaning back slightly with his arms crossed. As usual, it was maddening how relaxed he could be at critical moments, especially given how he'd insisted on doing most of the talking here. "How's that?"

Opelle sat down, took out a datapad, and pulled up a file. Kaevee couldn't read upside-down, but she recognized a picture of Atton's face at the top of the screen. As the admiral talked, he scrolled through the data, albeit too quickly for him to actually be reading it. "Well, I could say something about how most people who leave the army do it so they can live the rest of their lives in peace. But it's really because you seem to have a habit of disappearing. Intelligence gave me a dossier on you which starts with your service record. Exemplary, I must admit. The 92nd Army Division, just as you said in your message…"

He paused and, as though on cue, Atton said in a rote tone, "First in, last out."

A short-lived smile played across Opelle's lips. "First in, last out… Your service file goes right up to the end of the Mandalorian Wars, only to stop there. We have nothing on your whereabouts or activities for five years after the war. There's no record of your being discharged." His eyes were a stony gray, but only one of them focused on the pilot. "There is a… _perfunctory_ note that such records may have been accidentally lost."

"I guess that kind of stuff can happen even today," Atton mused blandly.

"They can and they do, more often than most people realize. As a matter of fact, your apparent disappearance after the battle of Malachor V is anything but an anomaly; it's very much the same with the majority of those who fought there—and survived. Jedi, officers, and soldiers. Not a few of them reappeared in the following years in unexpected places."

Spoken though they were in a completely innocuous tone, the admiral's words seemed to stop the conversation cold. Holding her glass close to her lips, Kaevee watched Atton and Opelle closely, easing into the Force and trying to pierce the banal, commonplace façade of their interaction. She failed to grasp any of their conscious thoughts, but there was a tension between the men so strong that it could've been mistaken for a prelude to violence. Atton hadn't so much as shifted in his chair, but it was as if the admiral had just pulled a blaster on him, and the pilot was simply waiting to see if he was going to pull the trigger.

Kaevee understood what was going on. Though not well-studied, she wasn't completely ignorant of recent history. She had been told about the beginning of the war—the Jedi Civil War, as supposedly it was—and where Darth Revan's first followers, dark-siders and common soldiers alike, had come from. Which meant Admiral Opelle was implying that Atton was a traitor to the Republic.

Could it be true? It was as plausible as anything else. Once again Kaevee remembered how she had resolved to stop prying, stop trying to find out things about Atton when they would only make him more difficult to trust. Now it looked like she was going to hear more, whether she wanted to or not.

The admiral raised his chin and finally broke the silence. "Of course, _you_ reappeared some years later, after the destruction of Peragus. You were seen traveling with the Exile for a while. Then six more years off the radar, and now here you are, saying that you've gathered this critical intelligence for us. That you're here to warn us."

Kaevee blinked, suddenly confused. If he wasn't going to actually make the accusation, then why would he bring it up in the first place?

Atton straightened a bit. "Do you believe me?"

"To all appearances, the files you sent us are genuine. The images of Malachor's surface and the Sith academy are quite elaborate. The plans of Singularity Base and the Mass Shadow Generator, complete with its codes, are an exact match for what the Special Weapons Division has in their archives—archives which, I am assured, not even the Sith could steal from without us even realizing it. And we know Bao-Dur traveled with you and the Exile for a time, so your claims to have gotten that information from him are plausible. Of course, we cannot verify the map of this Second Sith Empire. But if this _is_ some kind of ruse to infiltrate the Republic…"

Kaevee's brow furrowed at the unfamiliar terms—Singularity Base and so on, and the name Bao-Dur. On a certain level she was annoyed; it was as if most of this conversation had taken place without her already. She wished she had asked Atton more about his message for Opelle. But more than that, she was growing progressively more uncomfortable—not to mention impatient—with the admiral's obscure, roundabout way of talking. "Do you really think that's what this is?" she broke in. "That we're working for the Sith?"

The admiral looked at her, smiling apologetically. She had trouble holding his one-eyed gaze. "_I_ don't think so, Miss Kaevee, but some have suggested that. Your ship is affiliated with the Sith Remnant, and you— Well, you and Master Atris were—"

"Please," the old woman intoned, "it's just Atris."

"You and _Madame_ Atris," he adjusted, nodding at her, "were both assumed to be dead until now. Your only crime, as it were, is being associated with Mister Rand, who at the very least broke into a Republic relay station. All of you could therefore be detained until a full investigation can be conducted by Intelligence and Internal Security… which would take a long time. They will be very thorough."

Atris made no reply, only continuing to listen impassively.

"But this is ridiculous!" Kaevee protested. "The Sith tried to kill us on Dantooine _and_ at Ord Lonesome."

"That in itself does not place you above suspicion, as far as the Republic is concerned. One Sith will kill another, if he thinks he has a reason to." Opelle paused as though waiting for an objection, but Kaevee could only offer him a dumbfounded stare as she set her glass down on the desk.

The admiral went on, looking sympathetic again—or trying to. "I simply want you all to understand the precariousness of your situation. I believe that the data Mister Rand sent us is authentic. At any rate, the Sith presence on Malachor is enough precedent for us to launch an attack there, since the Jedi Civil War never technically ended. Where my colleagues and I differ, however, is how willing we are to trust Mister Rand and his motives, his sudden return to the patriotism of his youth. But as far as _I'm_ concerned…" He made a vague gesture with one hand. "…it's as good a story as any."

"I can see where this is going," Atton said softly, as though to himself.

"Yeah, so can I. I've seen this before," added Cole. Turning to look at Kaevee, he pointed to the admiral and began to explain, "See, he's the good Judicial, and his 'colleagues' are the—"

"Mister Terrick, _please_," Opelle commanded, some actual force leaking into his tone for the first time. Then he gave a little shake of his head, as though chastising himself for such a show of emotion. Sweeping the four of them with his gaze, he began again. "I suppose further preliminaries would just be a waste of time. So, very well—there are two things that can happen after this conversation. I can follow proper protocol to the letter and turn you over to the investigators and the bureaucrats. Let them have you for a month, six months, a year, or however long they'll take to turn you and your stories inside-out." He looked at Kaevee, then at Atris. "The two of you should get off easy. But I think Mister Rand can expect prison time, if only for that business with the relay."

He raised an eyebrow at Cole. "And as for you, Mister Terrick, the Judiciary has a file on you going back seven years. Numerous counts of smuggling, attempting to bribe customs officials. Falsifying credentials, theft, assault, resisting arrest. You're lucky you've never killed anyone—at least as far as we know. But depending on the details and the way the courts go, I'd guess you're looking at around ten years' imprisonment. Maybe more."

"And here I thought I was in some _real_ trouble," the spacer said darkly, letting out a breath he'd been holding. But Kaevee could see one corner of his mouth twitching upward, as though he was suppressing a smile. She was right; Cole _was_ crazy. Yet no less crazy, it seemed, than Atton and Atris, who appeared resigned to having their fates dictated by some ignorant governmental authority.

"I think I know what the second option is," the pilot remarked.

Admiral Opelle nodded gravely. "You probably do. And I think all of us would prefer it over the first. I am in a position to spare you of this unpleasantness. If I were to have some words with a few certain officials and acquaintances, I can bring them over to my line of thinking. There are only four of you; I can persuade them to overlook your… As the case may be, your peccadillos or murky pasts. If you're willing to put your talents at the service of the Republic."

"You're offering us a job?" Cole asked carefully.

"If you wish to call it that, yes. Technically you'll belong to the Strategic Information Service, but for all practical purposes you'll be an independent team of specialists, and report directly to me. The Republic hasn't had enough time to rebuild what was lost in the last war. The military certainly hasn't. If we're going to win _this_ war, we'll need people who can accomplish things that fleets and armies cannot."

Again the admiral swept them all with his gaze, and his good eye almost seemed to glimmer. "What we need is something like what Mister Rand began by bringing you all together: a small team of peculiar individuals coming from outside the formal command structure, possessing a diverse set of talents and skills, able to work together and think creatively…"

Kaevee thought of the many arguments, spats, blunders, and brushes with death that she had been a part of since first meeting Atton on Dantooine, and found herself doubting that the admiral was really as good a judge of character as he thought himself to be. However, she felt that this was not the time to share that opinion.

"Our situation will be desperate enough as it is," Opelle was saying, "with only three Jedi on our side, when in the past we had the entire Order to counter the Sith."

Sure enough, Atton was quick to point out, "We're not Jedi, we're—"

"—just people with lightsabers," Kaevee finished, her voice tight. Ignoring the pilot's irritated look, she couldn't help but add, "But _I'm_ a Jedi."

The admiral didn't so much as blink. "Your personal philosophies are your own business. Whatever you are, you have the power of the Force, and the Republic needs your help." He folded his hands on the desk. "Do you accept my terms?"

Kaevee stared at her glass of ice water, feeling relief and discomfort at the same time. Obviously they would accept; this had been the whole point of their mission, to help the Republic against the Sith. But she was uneasy about how the admiral thought it necessary to blackmail them into doing what they had planned on doing anyway.

The pilot uncrossed his arms. "Yeah, I do. Thanks for believing me."

Cole spoke up then, sounding just a little nervous—probably unable to believe his good fortune. "Hey, just so we're clear, you're talking to me too, right? We work for you, I get pardoned?"

"I'll see to it that all possible charges against you are dropped or suspended," Opelle replied.

"Then I'm in."

Kaevee leaned forward a little. "So am I."

"And I," added Atris.

"Then we're finished here—for now." The admiral stood up, and the crew did the same. "Some quarters have already been prepared for you. I'll have you shown there and given a proper dinner. Mister Rand, I want to meet with you tomorrow morning. Since you're the one who brought us this intel, I want you to help with planning our attack on Malachor."

"Sure thing."

The two men shook hands. As they all started back toward the door, Atton gave Kaevee a gentle nudge with his elbow. "Why the long face? You should be thrilled—get to serve the Republic like you always wanted."

"In the meantime," the admiral broke in, "if there's anything any of you need at any point…"

Atton stopped short of the door. "Actually, I've got a favor to ask for. You've got those bounty hunters on board, right?"


	21. Paths

The Republic had dropped off four technicians, two soldiers, and an officer at the site of the relay station. When questioned, the officer explained that they were there to conduct an inspection and any necessary repairs following an unauthorized use of the relay. When it was clear that he and his men were unwilling or unable to provide any further details, Visas had the assassins cut their throats.

Now she stood just outside the station's entrance, her head bowed in contemplation. The morning drizzle was a frigid one, but she resisted the urge to tune it out, instead letting the discomfort drive her deeper into the dark side's embrace. Things in the canyon were calm, but the wider landscape crackled with activity as braying, stomping, slithering, and gliding creatures went after their wants.

Leofel was inside with another assassin, working on slicing into the relay's computer. The rest had returned to the _Celestus_, which Atton had damaged before his flight from the Ord Lonesome system with a lucky turbolaser shot—

No, Visas corrected herself. Not _lucky_. There was no luck.

The blast had damaged the scout flyer's hyperdrive, and the jumps it had taken to reach Daluuj—following yet another belated alert from a spy satellite—had played further havoc with it. Making another jump before effecting repairs would be too dangerous. To compound their predicament, the _Celestus'_ hyperwave transceiver was disabled as well, meaning they could not call for assistance—unless they managed to recalibrate the relay station, which would be more difficult than simply finding out what Atton had been using it for.

Cognizant as she was of their limitations, Visas had no distaste for machines in themselves. Even so, she could not help but be frustrated at the fact that so much should depend on them…

There had been talk among the assassins of disposing of the bodies by feeding them to the nearby lake worms, but Visas told them not to bother; repairing the _Celestus_ was more important. Besides, she remembered how one of them on Dantooine had underestimated the laigreks and their Jedi handler and paid for it with his life. Daluuj's wildlife was certainly more dangerous, and hauling seven bodies over muddy slopes to the closest lake would be an unnecessary risk.

Meanwhile, the risk of failure was rising by the minute. Visas did not fear death, but she knew that her Master's penalty for failure would not be death, and this she knew well enough to fear. If Atton succeeded in escaping her grasp and warning the Republic of the invasion—and he may have done just that already—there would be no excuses, no deflections. Still, perhaps the Exile would also make Lord Silbus suffer for his obstruction.

And, she mused, perhaps the Exile herself would be made to suffer; she was, after all, responsible to the Empress, and Atton was supposed to have been completely under her thumb. The fact that he had betrayed the Sith at all had to have been an embarrassment for her; but Visas had been sent on her mission before she could see any of its consequences begin to play out.

_Find Atton… Bring him back to me._

Standing there in the rain, listening, Visas knew to fear the consequences of failure. However, she was increasingly inclined to think that if she were to "fail" to bring Atton back _alive_, that price would be worth paying. And once she found out what he had been doing at the relay, exactly who he had been trying to contact and why, perhaps she would be able to find him again and begin to pay it.

* * *

Lord Silbus had had a busy day.

Individual days were hard to discern on Malachor V, but they passed away as assuredly as they did on any world—or no world—and he had been continuing his work, secure as his academy was secure. After enjoying a streak of glorious, uninterrupted productivity such that he had not experienced in years, he had actually found himself sated enough to leave Trayus Core of his own accord and to spend a day touring his domain, so as to see that all was well with it.

He met with Vosca Tyrnith and the other senior Beastkeepers and heard their reports. More foodstuff for the brutes had finally arrived. A few of the Wranglers had been duly reprimanded after being caught in the midst of a wasteful form of amusement involving a boma, a crate of adhesive grenades, and some idiot's kloo horn.

The Blademaster and lesser combat instructors reported the usual number of student injuries in the Proving Grounds—nothing too severe. While speaking with them, Silbus chanced to learn that Gorbus had continued practicing his Quey'tek, and he and Yaiban Retwin were both still alive.

The Chroniclers, Lorekeepers, Doctors, and Sages complained of the rate of attendance at their lectures before sidetracking into an argument about the authenticity of Karness Muur's _Trialogue of the Elders of Ziost_—a controversy which Silbus was all too happy to settle.

The Master Assassins fairly bored him to death in recounting the nature of the new infiltration training exercises they had been conducting.

Using his comlink, Silbus spoke briefly with the one in charge of Singularity Base, whose name he had recalled with considerable difficulty: Major Vasch. The Human reported that there were no problems with security or anything else, and Silbus left it at that.

The Headmaster even surprised himself by going to the transmission room to raise Admiral Varko, asking if he had heard anything from Marr about her pursuit of the _Ebon Hawk_. Varko answered that he hadn't, and for all he knew the chase could be over by now. Were that the case, Silbus mused, the Miraluka may well have slipped back up the Nagian Corridor, her departure as unannounced as her arrival had been. To leave without even bothering to return his assassins would be quite annoying, but even that was not enough to sour his mood for long.

Finally Silbus had taken dinner in his quarters alone, and with this done, he slouched into his library. The Force could enable him—and had so enabled him—to keep his body's demands for sleep at bay for days or even weeks. But at this hour, after having poured so much of himself into his beloved work, even the Force began to fail him at last, and his bones seemed to creak under the weight of his robes. His head-tendrils pained him as much as they ever had, but it was a dull, distant pain, and the appendages seemed too tired to squirm.

He absent-mindedly walked the length of his desk, skimming its surface with the fingers of one hand. His eyes wandered the room; after alighting briefly on the same sculpture of Tulak Hord that had caught his attention before, they rose, fixing upon a bronze plaque hanging from the wall. Tested by heat, scratched, and dented, it had lost its original luster and was the only memento of his former life. It read:

_**Trans-Sectorial University of Dagary Minor,**_

_**upon the recommendation of the Faculty and the Board of Trustees,**_

_**and by virtue of the power in them vested, have conferred upon**_

_**THORIEL QUINTAIN SILBUS**_

_**who has pursued the studies, passed the examinations and complied with all other requirements therefore, the degree of**_

_**DOCTOR OF XENOLINGUISTICS**_

_**with all rights, privileges, and honors thereunto pertaining.**_

An epoch ago, a grief-stricken professor had skinned his hands as he dug that plaque out of the small mountain of smoldering permacrete that had once been the campus where he had toiled for many thankless decades. A lifetime of scholarship, fellowships, professorships—many types of somethingships—blotted out in a single day by the onslaught of Darth Malak.

As occupying Sith forces poured into the city, the once-professor had fled neither to the bomb shelters nor to his home, for what did he have left after his career had met such an explosive end? Wives, offspring, relations in abundance, and all of them greedy, capricious, ungrateful, and worst of all indifferent to his genius. Thoriel had suffered them for a lifetime, solaced only by his work. Better to let them think he was dead and throw himself on the mercy of the Sith; contrary to the old Corellian maxim, he preferred the devils he _didn't_ know to the devils he did.

He had managed to smuggle his precious plaque into the camp, knowing it would likely be the last great achievement of his life. The Human soldiers had treated him roughly and called him many things: _vermin_, _alien scum_, _freak_. Even then, he had found it rich that such creatures should think less of other species when they themselves couldn't even breathe underwater.

In any case, it had happened that Thoriel didn't languish for very long before one of the Dark Jedi—yet another Human—had him dragged to his office, where they had spoken privately. _I hear you were a professor on this planet for many years, alien,_ the Dark Jedi had told him. _Tell me, could you see yourself becoming a student again?_

Battered, emaciated, embittered, and altogether quite ready to die, Thoriel hadn't understood at first, but kept an open mind. Before he knew it, he had found himself on a transport bound for Korriban, and the rest was history.

Coming back to himself, Lord Silbus nodded slowly at the plaque as it fulfilled its purpose: it reminded him to be grateful. In a way he owed Lord Malak a debt for invading Dagary Minor. By any mundane measure it had been the worst thing ever to happen to him, yet in the end he reaped unimaginable benefits from it.

His eyes turning dim, the Headmaster drifted from the library to his bedchamber. He was content to yield to the flesh for a time and give it a few hours' rest. But when he rose again, he would not cease until he was finished at last with Fulminius Graush.


	22. Roles

As they approached the cell block, Atton and Kaevee started to pull out the clearance badges they had been given, but one of the two guards shook his head and waved them closer. "No need for that, Mister Rand," he called. "The admiral sent word, said you could have a few minutes with the prisoner." As he typed in the passcode for the door, he added, "Though I can't see why you'd want to."

"_I_ can," interjected his partner.

The girl gave him a characteristically oblivious look before following Atton into the cell block. It was identical to the one they had been treated to, but had only one occupant, as the bounty hunters were all being held apart from one another. _Not to make light of what that woman and her accomplices put you through_, Opelle had said, _but it's fortunate for us that they were also on Daluuj. The Judiciary will be _very_ eager get its hands on them._

Mira sat in the far corner of the farthest cell, dressed in plain clothes like the ones Kaevee had been given. Snapping her fingers randomly, she stared at the ceiling with wide, childlike eyes as though she found it somehow captivating. She didn't acknowledge her visitors until they were right outside her cell. Atton sensed a little spike of outrage that she covered over with a falsely disinterested glower. "Got friends in high places, huh?"

"We do," Atton admitted.

"Yeah, I buy that. I'm sure you didn't whore yourself out as an agent for the Republic, or anything like that." She tipped her head toward Kaevee. "That's a page out of your playbook, right?"

Atton gave the girl with a look to keep her mouth shut. She did, but was obviously coiled as tight as a spring—her glare never left the bounty hunter. He wasn't sure exactly why she'd insisted on coming with him, but figured she wanted some kind of closure for what had happened on Daluuj. "You can call it whatever you want. It's none of your concern," he said evenly. "I was just wondering if you felt like sharing who you're working for."

"What'd I get if I told you?"

"My _gratitude_," he drawled.

Mira guffawed as though actually amused, then ran a finger through her hair. "Sorry, but I'm a _little_ classier than that."

"Eh, it was worth a try. I couldn't save you from going to prison even if I wanted to." Which was the honest truth. Opelle had provided a whole laundry list of things Mira and her friends were wanted for: piracy, smuggling, dozens of contract killings—including, it was suspected, the murder of a Mid Rim senator. "You can color me impressed, though," Atton went on. "Most hired guns wouldn't keep a secret like that, not with a life sentence staring them in the face… Which reminds me, Cole Terrick sends his regards."

Slowly, almost luxuriously, Mira rose and went to the transparisteel barrier. "Well, that's sweet of him… It's real simple, Atton. You don't go blabbing about contracts as big as this one if you care about your health. Now, is there anything else you need my help with?" She glanced impishly at Kaevee. "Girl trouble?"

The girl in question maintained her surprising restraint, continuing to play the part of a Human statue, albeit a very obviously disgruntled one. If she failed to keep it up, the air around her could've ignited.

Staying out of it, Atton wondered whether he had gained a shred of knowledge after all. The way Mira had said it, it seemed like she was keeping her mouth shut about her employer to keep herself safe from him, which suggested he had considerable reach and influence. At any rate, he wasn't just some pissed-off freighter jockey who wanted the _Ebon Hawk_ back after losing it twenty years ago.

So that narrowed it down to "powerful person or organization," leaving Atton with as many options as there were cards in a pazaak deck. _Well, better than nothing._

While he mulled this over, Mira apparently lost interest in both her visitors and started inspecting her nails. He watched her for a few seconds, then on a whim said, "You're kind of different from how I remember."

She didn't look up. "Yeah?"

"Yeah, you've got a whole gang now. Well, you did… but you always seemed like the loner type. And I seem to recall you having a conscience back in the day."

"Gotta grow up sometime. And the higher-paying jobs, you usually need a team for 'em…" Abruptly, she offered Kaevee a grimace. "Hey doll, you got something to say or not?"

Though the girl broke her silence then, her mouth barely seemed to move. "I only have one thing to say to you."

"Sure, I can guess, Jedi. This is the part where you explain how you're too good to hate me."

"No, I _do_ hate you." Kaevee took a deep breath then, and a fraction of the rigidity seemed to shudder its way out of her body. "But it's good enough knowing you're going to get what you deserve… That's all."

Mira rolled her eyes and took a lazy step back. "Yeah, whatever you say, honey. Why don't you two blow outta here already? Afraid you're gonna miss me or something? Don't worry. When my crew and I get out, we'll make sure to pay you a visit, catch up…" Her voice had eased itself into a faux-sultry whisper. "I promise."

Atton studied her closely, sensing the emotions exuding from her, as though in a cloud so thick he could taste it: there was contempt, bitterness, a kind of lonesome happiness… and anticipation. She didn't look like much—that is, she didn't look dangerous—but this was the same woman who had single-handedly escaped from an Exchange kingpin's stronghold on Nar Shaddaa, evading its entire retinue of Ubese guards after outfighting a crazed, sword-toting Wookiee and a small pack of tamed kath hounds. Plus, that was all on the same day, six years ago, and even back then this skinny little minx had gotten away with calling herself the best bounty hunter on the Smuggler's Moon.

And that was part of the equation, he realized—everyone who had gotten stuck to Meetra looked like nothing special at first. _At first_. Atton himself had a lifetime's experience trading in bolshit, and his gut was telling him that when Mira talked about breaking out of a Republic prison, it wasn't just bravado. She could do it.

Unless, he mused, she was to somehow be prevented from ever reaching the prison alive. Unless, for instance, someone happened to telekinetically reach through the transparisteel and crush her throat right _now…_

Her eyes narrowed as though she was beginning to read the idea on his face.

Atton hooked one thumb over an index finger and popped the knuckle. It was so tempting. She was right there, it would be so easy, and he'd be a ronto's uncle if he said he wouldn't enjoy it. But then what? He couldn't think of any way to make it look like an accident. And given that he'd only been back in the Republic's employ since the previous night, the chances were high that Admiral Opelle wouldn't give him a break on it. The man may have been open to compromises, but it was too soon to test him—too soon for him to forgive even one measly case of extrajudicial murder.

Not to mention, Kaevee was right there in the room with them. Atton didn't exactly expect her to stick up for Mira, but she was still Jedi enough that it would be over the line for her. She was sure to make a fuss and get all hysterical, and then she'd be that much harder to get under control so she could be properly trained. Atris was apparently having a difficult enough time with her already. So it was a draw. _Twenty to twenty._

He gave the bounty hunter a wink as he turned away. "Don't take too long, Mira. See you on the dark side." Then he put his hands in his pockets and strolled out, Kaevee close behind.

"Hope you enjoyed that," he told her as the detention area's blast door shut behind them.

"We shouldn't have bothered," she said morosely, looking up the corridor.

That irritated him, and he considered firing back with something that would put her off-balance, like telling her that Jedi aren't supposed to hate people, as she had just admitted to doing. Instead he gave his chrono a look. "I've got to go meet with the admiral. We have some mayhem to plan."

* * *

Even though she was deliberately the last one to enter the briefing room, Kaevee drew a number of stares and puzzled looks as she went in. In the days that had passed since being recruited by the Republic, she'd been getting them wherever she went aboard the _Valiant_. Women seemed to be a minority among the crew, but she supposed the real reason was her Jedi robes; she'd managed to reclaim them only after several laborious hours of finding and then scouring the gargantuan ship's laundry facilities.

Officers and pilots filed into the auditorium and sat down, conversing in hushed, matter-of-fact tones and passing datapads or flimsies back and forth. Just about all of them were Human, but there were a few aliens and protocol droids mixed in, and down in the front row she saw the Devaronian—she still couldn't remember his name—sitting next to Atton and saying something into his ear.

The stage in front of them was dominated by a circular holotable several times as big as the _Ebon Hawk_'s. Beside it, Admiral Opelle stood behind a podium, typing something into a datapad. He looked up—first at Kaevee, then the empty doorway behind her—and then pressed a button. The lights at the very back of the room went out, and the rest dimmed slightly. There were a few last-minute murmurs, then silence.

Suddenly finding herself in darkness, Kaevee shuffled to a back corner of the room, though a few seats were still empty.

The admiral drew himself up and looked slowly from one end of the assembly to the other. "Some of us here," he began pensively, "were at Telos six years ago when the Sith launched a brazen frontal attack against us, which was the first of its kind since they withdrew from the Expansion Rim. After we won that day, my friend and colleague, Admiral Cede, told me that it seemed the Republic hadn't yet escaped from the wars of its past. Speaking today, after six years of relative peace, I think it's safe to say that even back then, he didn't know how right he was."

He paused to activate the holotable, which conjured a glowing red image, the first Kaevee had seen of Malachor V itself—a fusion of several huge, misshapen chunks of rock marred by gigantic cracks, like a giant hand had taken hold of the planet and squeezed. The hologram was just an outline with no real detail at all, but to think that that fractured shape modeled something that had once been an actual, habitable world like so many others made Kaevee's spine grow cold.

The admiral resumed; there was no trace of the almost wistful manner of his preamble. "Reconnaissance data provided by Atton Rand indicates that the Sith academy relies on secrecy as its main defense. This is unsurprising, considering the depletion of their military strength over the past decade. We expect to face a medium-sized defense fleet. _Interdictor_ cruisers will be the backbone, perhaps headed by a _Centurion_-class."

He continued to narrate as two clusters of icons materialized, one red and one blue, representing the assumed defending fleet and the _Valiant_'s task force respectively. There followed a web of curving lines ending with arrowheads, indicating attack movements and formations, and smaller blips representing fighter squadrons. Kaevee was distracted by the quiet hissing of the door, and she turned her head to see Cole stepping gingerly into the room. After looking from one wall to the other, he joined Kaevee, standing at arm's length, and watched the briefing with his arms crossed.

The hologram changed to a topographical map, showing a rocky landscape shot through with a labyrinth of jagged, twisting canyons and gorges running between mountainous spires. "…two surface targets," the admiral was saying as two shapes on the map were highlighted in yellow. "The first is Trayus Academy, which hosts as many as three hundred dark side adepts. To prevent them from participating in the ground battle, the _Monitor_ will fire on the academy first. It extends deep underground, but with its surface structures destroyed, any Sith who survive the bombardment will be trapped underground."

Kaevee swallowed hard. _We're actually doing this,_ she realized._ We're going to do to them what they did to us_. The reality was so oddly difficult to comprehend that she almost didn't hear what the admiral said next.

One of the yellow objects, which looked something like a huge bowl, or a funnel, filled the display. Several kilometers across, its interior was thick with pylons and antennae, and sloped down toward a hole in the center which apparently led underground.

"Just three klicks to the west is the second target, Singularity Base, which houses the Mass Shadow Generator inside and beneath this artificial crater. That structure you see encircling the rim is divided into two rings. The outer one serves as a garrison, while the inner one consists of control and monitoring stations for the superweapon's operating crew. After destroying Trayus Academy, the _Monitor_ will collapse the base's theater shield with a surgical turbolaser strike, allowing our dropships to land on the northwest side.

"Our strategy here is textbook—and speed is critical here, as we will likely not be able to send ground reinforcements once the space battle is begun. Sentinel droids will go in first, followed by Major Hawkins' troops, who will penetrate the garrison and fight their way to one of the master control consoles, where Atton Rand will input the activation codes for the Mass Shadow Generator. Since its first use, the superweapon has been kept online in order to maintain the stability of Malachor V's gravity field. Once the codes are entered, our forces will immediately return to the dropships for extraction. This time, the planet—what remains of it—will be completely obliterated, not to mention any ships within its orbit."

Kaevee's eyes drifted to Atton at the mention of his name and found, as usual, that her feelings were mixed. The pilot had already told the crew that Opelle expected the _Ebon Hawk_'s crew to assist in the battle at Malachor. Along with his prediction of what the plan of attack would be—which proved accurate to the briefing—he had made clear what their roles were going to be.

_I'll give it to you straight,_ he had told her. _You're not going with me into that base. It's gonna be a bloodbath, even if there's not any Dark Jedi there. You're gonna stay on one of the dropships and help keep our escape route clear._

Her ineffectualness in the firefight on Daluuj wasn't something she'd wanted to be reminded of. _If I can't help with the fighting inside, what good am I supposed to do fighting at the dropships?_

_You're not gonna _do_ any fighting—hopefully. You'll have one job. Just crank your Force senses up as high as you can and keep 'em there, and if any Dark Jedi come anywhere near the LZ, you sound the alarm. Get the troopers gunning at 'em. Otherwise, if they get the drop on you, we're pretty much fracked._

As always, there was some logic to what Atton said, but she still hated it. Had she been asked if she was willing to put her life in danger and accept responsibility for the lives of others? No, she had been told that she would, and in what exact way. She was willing to do those things—ultimately, she was born to do them—but a Jedi wasn't like some common soldier that others could move around like a pawn on a dejarik board.

That was only an annoyance, though. What actually galled her was hearing that Cole was going to be stuck with her, the unspoken reason being in order to keep her out of trouble. Atton might not have been a Jedi, but Kaevee could begrudgingly admit that there were still things she could learn from him, in training and in the field. Cole, on the other hand—what did _he_ know? And what good would he be if some Sith actually did attack the dropships? Kaevee trusted her laigrek more to bail her out of trouble; really, if anything went wrong, she'd probably end up having to save _him_. Again.

_If you _can_ save him again,_ chided a voice from somewhere inside her. _First you think you're so capable…_

Down at the end of the room, the hologram reverted back to the orbital image of Malachor, and the admiral started taking questions from the officers. But Kaevee's attention was now captive to her thoughts, and after a few lonesome minutes she fled the briefing room. She snapped out of it by the time she was back at the guest quarters block. At the door to her room, she hesitated, and her eyes went to the next one down.

She'd spoken to Atris once since they were released from the brig. It hadn't gone particularly well.

_One who has a troubled spirit is easy to kill,_ had been the first words out of the old woman's mouth. When she offered again to teach Kaevee to meditate, Kaevee had again refused.

When they had spoken about the coming battle, Atris said she would be remaining on board Opelle's flagship. _On Daluuj, I was reckless and stupid, moved by fear. The old are not immune to these… I will stay centered in the Force. I will watch you, as best as I can see in the dark, and give you strength if you need it._

_I'm not sure I _will _need it, based on what Atton tells me,_ the Padawan had said.

Though Atris' eye had not been visible, it nevertheless had seemed she was giving Kaevee a disapproving glower. _It is against my better judgement that you take any part in this battle. But how could you not? The admiral wishes it, and you are a Jedi… I feel there is no other way for you._

_What's that supposed to mean?_ Kaevee had asked.

_Yet again Master Atris finds she is not as wise as she once thought; she has failed to find the right words. But if anything I say matters to you, Kaevee, then hear this: whatever instructions Atton gives you, follow them. You are no Jedi Knight. Do not delude yourself otherwise._ With finality, the old woman had pointed her cane at the door. _Go—and do not disturb me. I must gather my strength. We will speak again._

Even though the Padawan hadn't expected it, she had still been disappointed when Atris didn't say, _May the Force be with you._

Kaevee went into her room, brooding, and sat on the edge of her bed. The guest quarters were much cleaner and more spacious than the dorm on board the _Ebon Hawk_, and each unit sported its own refresher—but it was still just more metal.

Like everyone else in Kaevee's life at the moment, Atris was a difficult person. She was perhaps the most difficult, in a way. Her cryptic utterances were grating, and her obvious antipathy for the Order were intolerable. But even with all that, Kaevee felt guilty for avoiding the fallen-away Jedi so much. She'd admitted to herself that she could learn from Atton; she knew she ought to have done the same with her would-be mentor.

There had to be a way to talk to Atris without feeling naked. Kaevee decided that she would find that way—after Malachor. She would be forthright and speak more openly. Perhaps, then, she would eventually be able to convince Atris that she was wrong about the Jedi.

Kaevee studied the floor idly. She missed her pet. The laigrek had only been stunned on Daluuj, and it would be able to accompany her during the battle, but it was being confined to the _Ebon Hawk_. As usual, Kaevee was responsible for checking on it—which, of course, would be easier if she could just keep it with her.

She thought of Master Vrook's damaged lightsaber, which was still in the compartment beneath her cot aboard the _Hawk_. Besides her laigrek, she had very little to keep herself tied to the past.

Tired of thinking, Kaevee sat on the floor and closed her eyes. "I am a Jedi, the Force is with me, I am a Jedi, the Force is with me…"


	23. Planet of Storms

Knowledge was power, and focus was the direction and application of power; and no being in the galaxy understood these truths better than Lord Silbus. Welded to the chair at his work station in Trayus Core, he focused, immune to all the petty protests and distractions of flesh. He put flesh to the rack, so that the left hand wrote and the right hand typed with no loss of either speed or precision. Let his head-tendrils shriek and twitch all they wanted, let his eyes tingle, let his bones waste away; only the final two pages of the _magnum opus_ of Fulminius Graush remained to be translated. He was so close that, were not the senses themselves odious to him, he would have said he could taste his triumph already.

But as they say on Nam Chorios, the storms are strongest near the mountain's peak, and so the Headmaster found himself assailed by an even greater array of would-be interruptions than usual. As he took a moment to gingerly flip to the last page—which was more difficult than usual, for some reason—he found himself considering these new threats to his success. The first of them was actually metaphysical and thus able to directly invade the course of his thoughts: it was a crashing, surging wave of raw emotion, the sum of hundreds of beings crying out in terror, dismay, and naked, animal confusion…

Another distraction was auditory, a series of undulating, thunderous roars that flooded his eardrums with a terrific ringing. Still another was tactile, possibly a consequence of the noise, but at any rate _something_ was causing Fulminius Graush's tome to vibrate so that the page was harder to turn; and it was also causing the little bookstand, Silbus' datapads, the other items on his desk, the desk itself, his chair and, in fact, seemingly everything in the vicinity, to rattle, resonate, shake, or shudder, depending.

Silbus' right hand managed to turn the page, only then to flop down onto the desk, spasming and twitching. His left hand dropped the stylus onto the face of its datapad, and a fitful bark of pain came bursting from his throat. He threw his body back against the chair, nearly knocking it and himself to the ground. His head angled up at the shrouded, miles-distant ceiling of Trayus Core, and he gnashed his teeth. He was so close…

The roars continued, each rumbling sound ebbing slightly, like a tide, only to immediately be supplemented by a new one. Irregularly, a cluster of sharp, titanic claps like clusters of explosions came blasting through the enveloping cacophony.

The Headmaster turned his head toward a distant rock wall, imagining he would see gaping cracks shooting down across it; whether or not there were any, the shaking and the murky darkness made it impossible to tell. This was, he realized sulkily, a most irregular sort of interruption, such that it demanded that a very painful and thorough retribution be visited upon whomever was responsible. His wrath would not be stayed again—not _this_ time.

More immediately pressing, however, was the probability of this interruption proving fatal to him. But what _was_ that probability? What would happen if the shockwaves didn't end soon? Would the cavern collapse? Would its walls explode inward? Would Trayus Core's platform snap like a reed and send him plummeting down into the abyss? There was no telling what could happen!

Silbus' cheeks pulled back in a defiant snarl, but its sound was swallowed up by that of the uncertain cataclysm that bore down on him. _Outrageous._ Why in the name of Typhojem's spawn should he ever need to be concerned about such things?! He was a xenolinguist, not a seismologist!

"_Headmaster!_" bellowed a voice through the din. From the hurricane of panicked emotions a single mind detached itself; its vessel, Gorbus, was sprinting down one of the bridges toward Trayus Core's platform.

With reluctance, Silbus let the power of his rage flood into his body and set him on his feet. Conscious of the need to maintain his composure, he whirled on the Human, his long robes flapping through the bloody red light of the Core, his olfactory tendrils also flapping, and silently screeching into his brain. "What is the meaning of this?!" he demanded.

Gorbus scrambled to a stop and stood heaving, his skin nearly as pale as Silbus', a few blueish veins bulging on his cranium. "We… are under attack!" he gasped. "The Republic… is bombarding the academy!"

The noise continued and the pains continued, but for a moment there seemed to be nothing in existence except for Lord Thoriel Silbus himself and the solitary, disastrous fact that had just been reported to him. Questions tore through his mind. "The transmission room!" he thundered at last. "I must speak with Admiral Varko—"

"But Headmaster, there _is_ no transmission room! The upper levels have been destroyed! The academy's topside structures are gone, the proving grounds have collapsed, and other sections—"

The Human trailed off, seeing that the Headmaster's lips were moving; but Silbus was not addressing him, only repeating to himself what was perhaps the worst realization of them all. "Marr was right. Marr was right. _Marr was right…_"

"My lord, I can't hear what you—"

With savage energy, Silbus brought a hand up to the back of his head, thrusting it through the midst of his olfactory tendrils, which writhed in protest. His grip found one, and it came free with a nameless, wet popping sensation.

Appalled, Gorbus stared as the Headmaster tossed the flopping, useless member off to the side. With a brief spurt of blood running down his neck, Silbus said, "The _entire_ academy has not yet collapsed, has it?!"

"No, Headmaster!"

"Then I need you to make contact with the Beastkeepers, if any are still alive—"

"Our comlinks are being jammed—"

"_SILENCE!_" Gorbus was dutifully silent, though nothing else was. "Someone must go to the beast pens! The keepers must open the drexl pens, all of them, in case the Republic lands any troops!" He paused. "But first we will gather what survivors we can—we will be safe in Singularity Base. There is a hovertram we can take there, close by—I must show you!"

A moment later they were striding across one of the bridges, Silbus crushing his two datapads and the tome of Fulminius Graush to his chest.

* * *

On the bridge of the lead dropship, Atton stood quietly behind one of the navigators' stations, watching through the viewport as the convoy raced for the surface of the dead planet. They had come out of hyperspace as close as they dared, just ten klicks outside the field of gutted and dismembered starships which had been screening Malachor's orbit for fifteen years. Off to the left at an almost-but-not-quite-comfortable distance, two fleets were joined in a tight-packed brawl of turbolaser fire. The battlefield's center glimmered like a splash of sunlight against the rippling surface of a lake, while stray bolts streaked off into the void like shooting stars tinged with scarlet or emerald. Starfighters and bombers swarmed like blister gnats, each one practically invisible—except when pinprick flashes of fire announced its destruction.

Atton was able to pick out the _Valiant_ quickly enough. Dwarfing its _Hammerhead_ cruiser escorts, the disk-hulled command ship slouched into the thick of the fight, its deflector shields shouldering heavy barrages of fire. Coming in from ahead to strafe it with kilometers to spare was a smaller, dagger-shaped _Centurion_-class battlecruiser, itself standing out from among her entourage of wedge-shaped _Interdictors_. There was a certain grim nostalgia to be found in the whole scene. The ship classes used by both sides—and probably most of the ships themselves—had all existed fifteen years ago, when Malachor was first a battlefield. This entire day would be a lethal, celebratory throwback, a reenactment of sorts.

The lone Republic cruiser _Monitor_ hung in space below the melee, and somewhat between it and the convoy. It had spent barely half a minute tracing a dotted line of green death toward the surface targets before a trio of frigates from the rear of the Sith formation dipped down toward it, forcing it to break off—but the best they could do at this point was retribution rather than prevention.

"Captain, _Monitor_ reports," announced a comm officer from her station. "Direct hit on both targets. Singularity Base's shield has collapsed. Moderate damage to its outer ring in the southeastern quadrant."

"Acknowledged," replied the captain dispassionately. "Gunners at the ready. We're four klicks from the debris field…"

As chatter on the bridge intensified and the view of the space battle slid past them, Atton took in the expanding view of Malachor V, where patches of silvery green light faded in and out over the surface like ghostly auroras, and writhing strands of what looked like slow-motion lightning circled in tight orbits. They were a visible sign of the Mass Shadow Generator's work, of whatever exotic energies it was harnessing in order to maintain the planetoid's gravity field, which in turn was keeping the artificial atmosphere in place.

Were it not for the eerie light show, that tortured mass of black rock would have looked just as lifeless as the hollowed-out ships surrounding it. As it was, it gave Malachor V itself a very out-of-place sense of life and activity. _Undead_ was the best word Atton could come up with.

Well, they were on their way to fix that. Crossing the debris field, they soared past drifting hulks that were large enough to splatter the whole convoy like sparkflies against a landspeeder's windshield. Occasionally the ships' forward laser cannons flared, vaporizing small fragments of twisted metal that wandered into their path. A couple struck the dropship, sending jolts through the deck, but the particle shields held.

Atton glanced at a diagram showing the convoy in formation, consisting of the flying brick dropships along with several battle droid carriers. In a double-throwback, the latter craft were KT-400s—not only a long-lasting ship class, but also the same one that had been used by Mira and her clique, who had been shipped off to Coruscant days earlier.

The thought of Mira led Atton to think first of her various parts, then of her wrist launcher, which he had also never had the opportunity to get his hands on. Still, he was going to be better armed on Malachor than on Daluuj, thanks to the _Valiant_'s armory.

Another crewmember picked up a speaker, and his voice bounced its way through the ship. "_Atmosphere in two minutes!_"

Those who had not already strapped themselves into jumpseats began to do so. Half-turning, Atton hesitated, giving one last look out the front viewport. Malachor V had swallowed the entire view and was now casting its silver-green glows into the bridge, along with pure flashes of actual lightning. A funny feeling came over him—not his usual bad feeling, but one which somehow reminded him of the one he'd had on Daluuj, that fluttering disbelief that progress was actually being made. It was different now, though—the incredulity was coupled with a cold finality that seemed to creep through his insides. In fact it was so cold, so absolutely frigid that it burned. _This is it,_ he thought, staring at once into multiple levels of the past. _This is where it was all supposed to end._

_And it still could,_ he, or something, added._ The storms are still there._ And they were—the same ones Atton had seen from the gunner station of the _Loxley_, after the Mass Shadow Generator had fired for the first time. He pulled his eyes away to the Remote, who had been hovering a few feet off to the side, and made a beckoning gesture. The little droid followed him off the bridge, back toward the stern of the flying brick.

They passed row after row after row of Republic soldiers, the next generation of them. It was another generation of Humans, probably trained on Carida or Corulag. They wore armor, blasters, and expressions that looked so familiar to Atton they may as well have had his own face too—the universal soldier-before-battle looks. Most of them stared straight ahead or at the boots of the guys across from them, blankly daydreaming, or bored and weary with waiting. As always, a few were tense, psyching themselves up, a few were nervous, hiding their tics and twitches even though no one was watching them, and a few were misty-eyed, silently moving their lips as they conversed with the Force or with some other god, making promises and trying to strike up last-minute deals.

As he squeezed past each row, Atton picked out the faces of officers he'd spoken with at the planning sessions and after the briefing. _Major Hawkins, Captain Hart, Lieutenant Reed…_ He knew their names and who was doing what. They knew as much about him, and that was enough, and soon the listing of their names changed into the counting of cards.

He took a jumpseat in the very back, next to Kaevee and Cole, just in time for the dropship to cut into the atmosphere with a lurch. He dipped into the Force, though he didn't need it to tell that the girl was wound up pretty good—she was praying too. The giant bug was under her seat, bracing itself between the front legs of the chair and the wall.

The flying brick bucked and rocked as it bulled its way through Malachor V's perpetual storms, and sickly gray clouds swam past the windows. Like the would-be Jedi, Cole wore his feelings on the outside, scowling and occasionally cursing as he was thrown against his restraints. Both of them had been duly acquainted with Major Hawkins and his subordinates.

More than once it had occurred to Atton to be uneasy about the level of confidence that Admiral Opelle placed in the _Ebon Hawk_'s crew. Atton was, after all, cursed with actual familiarity with them as people. At any rate, though, he had to be there on Malachor for the battle, to make sure it was done right. As for the others, what happened with them in the next few hours would show exactly what the admiral's presumptions had to do with reality.

_Draw from the deck, pull up a nine and a nine, the totals are twenty-two, sixteen. Play the minus-four card, that brings me down to eighteen…_

Before he knew it the ride had smoothed out somewhat, and their dropship banked as it began circling down toward the LZ. Orders and updates from the bridge blared through the speakers, and the troopers started squirming and shifting, double- and triple-checking their weapons and gear. Leaning forward, Atton reached behind himself to his backpack and unzipped the main pocket. "Get in, it's almost showtime," he said to the Remote, who bobbed through the air and disappeared inside.

Kaevee glanced at him. She'd already asked why the little droid was coming with. _Just insurance,_ he had told her.

There was a brief rumble as the dropship switched to repulsors, and their downward spiral became a straight vertical descent. "Looks like we're there," Cole observed, leaning over to peer out the window. Atton caught a glimpse of the giant dish at the center of Singularity Base, along with a cluster of strange green lights that crackled there, before the huge outer walls of the garrison rose and hid them from view.

Several dropships had already landed on the band of rare flat ground that surrounded the base and were being needled by the light laser cannons spaced along its wall. But even as his own ship still descended, Atton was able to make out the deep, ominous _thumps_ that marked the deployment of the first visitors to Malachor. They were the Republic's eight-meter-tall tank droids, ponderously descending the loading ramps of dropships that had been specially modified to transport them. Theirs was a utilitarian design: an exceptionally ugly, boxy chassis fronted with cannons and missile launchers, held up and lugged along—barely—by two side-mounted legs.

The defensive guns soon switched to targeting the tank droids themselves. One of the lumbering defense platforms' weaknesses was their limited field of fire, meaning that someone attacking from the side or from behind could chip away at their duraplate armor at leisure. Being unable to move, however, the wall turrets of Singularity Base could not avail themselves of this tactic. For a few seconds the light and fury in the air thickened, and then it vanished, leaving the ferrocrete walls decorated with smoking black cavities.

The walking tanks—twelve in all—thumped into position, forming an out-facing ring around the LZ as the remaining dropships and droid carriers touched down. There was a flurry of clicks and rustles as people peeled off restraints and practically leaped from their jumpseats, and shouted exchanges between the troops and their officers. Discipline restrained their excitement, though, as the sentinel droids had to go in first.

But the men wouldn't have long to wait. As Kaevee and Cole were observing, sentinel war droids were already marching in ranks from the KT-400s' ramps toward the base's doors. Humanoid-shaped and toting blaster rifles or repeaters, the mechanized infantry were protected by built-in energy shields as well as silver and black armor plating—the latter of which lent them some resemblance to the Sith troopers which they were soon going to slaughter.

Atton kept his enthusiasm in check as the automatons marched in. Getting inside and sweeping through the outer layers of the garrison was always going to be the easy part. Singularity Base's many weaknesses—such as the omission of anti-aircraft emplacements and heavier ground-based turrets—stemmed from the nature of Revan's original trap for the Mandalorians. Since her plan hadn't involved a ground battle on Malachor V, the base was never meant to withstand a serious attack.

From across the cabin, Atton saw Captain Hart, a hatchet-faced man with a bristly blond mustache. In between repeating orders to his men, the captain was glancing at him expectantly. There was only a minute left. Shouldering his pack, Atton turned to Kaevee. "I'm heading out."

The girl eyed him, a ghost of worry on her face. In the Force she felt tense, but also steady—for now. _You wanted to serve the Republic, and here you are,_ thought Atton. _Sink or swim._

Silence ensued between them. Atton felt like he ought to say something more, but what was it? In the end he settled for repeating himself. "It'll be fine, just stick to the plan. Stay with the troops and follow their lead if anything goes wrong. Whatever Major Hawkins tells you to do, do it. Just keep your Force senses up—"

"—and watch for Sith," she finished, not impatiently.

"Yep. And whatever you do, no stupid, suicidal heroics, all right?" The freezing-burning sense of finality hadn't abated, so his own mood was anything but mirthful, but he chose that moment to pull out his winning smile and play it for all it was worth. "That's my job here."

Seemingly unaffected, the girl just nodded. "Good luck," chipped in Cole from beside her.

Atton gave the spacer a nod and said, "You too." Privately, he wished he could have had Ecksee along to keep an eye on Kaevee as well. But the probe droid was still undergoing repairs after being ionized on Daluuj, so that was out.

The captain was still waiting. Atton had just gone a few paces when the girl called after him. "May the Force be with you, Atton."

He looked back. Kaevee was standing as straight and unmoving as a tower, her hands joined before her, staring at him with eyes that suddenly seemed deep and genuinely serious. In that eerie moment, she looked for the first time like a real Jedi Knight, not a scared, posturing girl who was captive to her own dreams.

It did nothing for Atton's spirits—slightly annoyed him, actually—but he kept it off his face and hurried to join Hart and his men. "Sentinel droids have reported in," the captain said. "The security door codes are all working so far. It looks like the Sith troops are falling back to reinforce junctions F through J, but we expected that…"

The officer went on. There was a chorus of shouts from the squad leaders, and at last the Republic troops unslung their blasters and turned toward the dropship's ramp as it fell open with a squeal and a bang. Hefting his own rifle, Atton became part of the unit as it went down onto Malachor's surface. As they marched between the parked dropships and the vigilant droid tanks and made for Singularity Base, his eyes swept the length of its monolithic laser-scarred wall. He looked up and saw lightning casting itself through the shrouded sky—and farther ahead, over the center of Singularity Base, emerald flashes throwing themselves against the clouds.

Atton took a deep breath. "Heard you miss me, beautiful," he said quietly.


	24. The Sound of Malachor

"Their command ship has exceptionally powerful jammers, so we can only hope Admiral Varko is able to knock them out. Until then, even our comlinks will be useless. The bombardment damaged our own jamming device, but our technicians are working on getting it back online as we speak…"

Major Vasch stood rooted before the main holotable, which showed a map of Singularity Base. He did not move except to gesture at different parts of the image in keeping with whatever particular subject or location he was prattling about. The members of his staff were scattered along the walls, monitoring and fiddling with their own precious computer consoles, their weak little minds filling the command center's air with the scent of anxiety. Spread out among them, Lord Silbus' entourage of Sith Acolytes and Marauders only magnified that fear as they fidgeted and whispered to one another, their generous hunger for violence suffusing the Force.

As he slowly paced around the holotable, Silbus spent much of his time pretending to study the map. With his nerves as frayed as they were, he did not trust himself to let his eyes linger on the major; after so many years inside his beloved academy, where the only Humans he ever had to deal with were the handful fit to be Force adepts, the Headmaster had been able to forget how he loathed that most absurdly prolific of species. To have to stoop to the level of being informed by a member of its ignorant masses was an indignity.

But for Silbus, this was one of the lesser trials on a day that already seemed fated to test him to his limits.

On an adjoining side from the major, flanked by her retinue of silent, masked assassins, stood Visas Marr, whose sudden appearance had been, for the Headmaster, unwelcome in particular but an at-least perfunctory relief in general. The presence of more Sith adepts meant the Republic invaders could be obliterated that much sooner.

The turbolaser barrage had annihilated the upper half of Trayus Academy's subterranean levels as well as its surface. Of the lower half, many of the sections that had survived were isolated by collapsing tunnels and passages, leaving most of the survivors—those lucky few—trapped. Nevertheless, Silbus had managed to assemble a party of Sith Marauders and Acolytes which happened to include Gorbus' friends, Zanjo and Yaiban. One acolyte, a sniveling Selkath who would never have survived the more exciting days of Revan's Empire, happened to mention that he had come from the deeper beast pens, and that they were relatively unscathed. The little runt was immediately sent back the way he had come with instructions for the Beastkeepers.

Marr had appeared and joined Silbus while he was still on his way to the command center. In her off-putting, oily monotone, the Miraluka told him some story of her deducing the Republic's intention to attack Malachor, then of a damaged hyperwave transceiver preventing her from warning the academy. Her vessel had only just been able to conduct her back to Malachor, and to slip around the battle in orbit.

She did not breathe a word of accusation against the Headmaster, much less did she gloat that he had underestimated the threat posed by the meddling Atton Rand—not because she wasn't arrogant enough, surely, but because she surmised that the time for that would come later. Or perhaps she just thought her silence and faux meekness would be enough to silently humiliate him. How Silbus raged within himself, unable to put her in her place, to rid himself of these vexations of mind and body…

Major Vasch continued to drone on. "The intruders have disabled most of the security monitors in primary corridor six, but we've ascertained that they're stationing squads down its length as a rear guard. The vanguard and the main body of troops are pressing on toward Security Zone C. Lieutenant Tallav's men are staying at this junction to slow them down…"

Silbus scratched at his neck, where blood had pooled and dried about the collar of his robe, and thought that perhaps he should amputate the rest of his olfactory tendrils when he got the chance.

He shook his head. His body still racked him with a hundred other aches and complaints, and he struggled to harness his endless frustrations, to burn them as fuel for the power of the dark side. It was imperative that he maintain his focus under these delicate circumstances. But there were other aggravations as well. One was a horrible, gnawing thought that he had forgotten something, some item of critical importance…

Every minute or two, he cast a wary glance over to a far corner of the command center, where the tome of Fulminius Graush and his two datapads were neatly stacked on an unused console. No, he had certainly not forgotten anything. Such a neurotic idea had to be coming from outside. Pausing his orbit of the holotable, he took a moment to close his eyes, casting his perception outward…

And yes, there was another presence. It was not Sith, but neither was it Atton Rand; that one was always at least trying to conceal himself. This being was different, of a kind that Silbus had not sensed since before Darth Revan's disappearance: like Malachor's primary, it was distant and on the wane, yet it gave off the unmistakable strength of light.

A sudden twinge in Silbus' forehead forced him to open his eyes, which fell on Major Vasch. The whelp looked over the hologram at him, his pompous façade of professionality cracking. Pointing to some other part of the hologram, he said, "We're going to have to make a last-ditch attempt to blunt their assault here, at Security Zone C. Their sentinel droids aren't going to last long in those close quarters, but by the time their soldiers arrive, my men may be reduced to quarter strength." His eyes swept across the black-clad men and women who stood impatiently around him. "My lord—and my lady—I fear you and your Sith are our only hope of winning the day."

The Headmaster rounded on the little man, disguising his grimace of pain as one of annoyance. "Your deference is as great a credit to you as your _wisdom_, major. But why don't you explain to me how these intruders managed to penetrate so far into the base so quickly?"

A cascade of emotions rippled across the major's features, as though he was shocked to find his audience actually paying attention to him. "Well yes, my lord, that was a cause of great alarm for us as well! They took us by surprise with the bombardment—"

"Leave off with your excuses and answer the question, you mumbling ignoramus!" Silbus thrust a finger at the hovering blue holomap, where a small section along the edge of the base's inner ring area was highlighted in yellow. "A facility such as this should have blast doors, security fields, and other passive defenses. Element of surprise or not, _those_ should have slowed the Republic down where your toy soldiers could not."

"We _do_ have such defenses, my lord," protested the major breathlessly. "But the Republic has been disabling them—what's more, they anticipated all of our attempts to flank them. It's as though they have intimate knowledge of this facility—"

"Because they _do_ have such knowledge," Marr interrupted, turning her eyeless face toward the Headmaster. "They have the schematics and all of the necessary command codes to shut down those defenses. Atton Rand supplied them."

"So he did," Silbus humored, studying the map again. "But what is their objective? Why is that security zone the site of the final battle? Why not attack us _here_, at the command center?"

"My lord, if I may—"

Currents of black thought twisted in the room, and Silbus' mind flooded with the temptation to telekinetically slam the major's head against the floor so hard that his wasted brains would spill out. But that was the appropriate way for a brute to respond to such a creature, so although he would not object to one of the many brutes in attendance doing so, the Headmaster himself responded only with a choice rebuke. "Silence, you _fool!_"

Ignoring the exchange, Marr spoke again. "It can only be the Mass Shadow Generator. The inner ring of the facility houses its control stations and its machinery. They will try to sabotage it, or more likely reprogram it, since they have its control codes—and Malachor itself will be destroyed."

At this, the hushed conversations of the Sith Acolytes and Marauders fell completely silent. Sweating contemptibly, Major Vasch cast dreadful glances between the Miraluka and the Headmaster, cognizant of his own superfluity but unwilling to completely disengage from the discussion. Even Silbus was genuinely appalled. His academy destroyed, priceless artifacts and archives lost, hundreds of Sith dead, himself embarrassed by Visas Marr—and all on the eve of the coming of the true Sith…

The Headmaster was confident that, with the right maneuvers, he had a good chance of salvaging his position within the Sith Order. There _was_ an academy on Thule, after all. It was almost totally uninhabited, but that was soon to change, and it wouldn't be too much trouble to wrest control away from that meddling Hoctu woman. More urgently, he needed to ensure that the news of the Republic's attack was phrased properly when it reached the Exile, so that she would understand it had no connection to any supposed neglect on Silbus' part. More likely than not, something would have to be arranged in order to keep Marr's testimony from muddying the waters.

However, that would all be a moot point if the battle itself was lost. He could survive a catastrophe such as the one that had already occurred. But if Malachor itself were to be destroyed… Well, assuming Silbus escaped _that_ cataclysm, it was certain that the Exile would make him wish he hadn't.

His thirteen remaining tendrils began to slowly writhe again as a fresh pain passed between them and his forehead. "We will not allow that to happen," he declared, shaking a fist at the holomap. "Students—to me!"

The Marauders and Acolytes pressed in around the holotable, their minds charged with anticipation as Silbus formed and relayed his plan to them. When he had finished, he inclined his head toward the garrison commander with mock warmth. "And as for you, dear Major Vasch, it is as you said all along. Your men need only hold the Republic troops until my students arrive. They will make a slaughter of them!"

"I have complete faith that they will, my lord, but what about their ships outside?"

"Think nothing of their _ships_. I have already arranged something for them."

"Very good, my lord." The major shut the holotable off and finally disappeared as the jubilant Sith adepts formed into two groups. Silbus was momentarily caught up in the mood of their excited chatter.

Until he saw Marr approaching him. "Surely you are not so ignorant as to think mere soldiers are the true threat to us here. Atton is fighting with the Republic."

Silbus chafed at the Miraluka's insolence, but he maintained control of himself. "Of course he is here. But I am more concerned…" He lowered his voice. "…about his Jedi friend. It seems you were right; he did find one to join his cause."

"No—he has found two."

"_Two?_"

"I sensed them. Both are holding back—one far away from the fighting…" She paused, then exhaled. "Another farther still."

The Headmaster reached into the Force again, more deeply than he had before. He sensed the same distant light that he had—glaring from afar off like the beams of a desert world's primary, needling at his mind. And yes, closer, deeper in the waves of darkness that covered Malachor V, there was some ripple of presence… Presences, rather, that were not of the Sith. One had to be Rand: slippery as always, found one moment, lost the next. The other was different, difficult to sense, yet not through camouflage but through weakness.

He came back to himself. "You… are correct. What do you intend to do?"

With a twitch of her head, the woman indicated her confederates. "They are meant to strike from the shadows, not in the plain light of battle. We will wait in the control area. If Atton or his Jedi allies manage to penetrate it, we will know."

Looking over her shoulder, Silbus studied the statuesque assassins—_his_ assassins, he remembered with ire. "I fear you will need some help, Marr… After all, Rand and his friends have outmaneuvered you for this long." He turned to the students. "Yaiban! Zanjo! Gorbus!"

When the three arrived, he gestured first at the Twi'lek and then at Zanjo, the Iktotchi. "You two will accompany me to the control area. And Gorbus, I have a special task for you. When your confederates move up the corridor toward the security zone, I want you to stay behind."

The Human's mouth fell open, and his friends traded frowns. "Headmaster, you're taking me away from the battle? Why?"

"So that you may have a chance to finally live out your dream, Gorbus—and thereby put it to rest. You've always wanted to meet a Jedi, haven't you?"

* * *

Kaevee had to force herself to not hurry as she descended the dropship's loading ramp and walked out under the oppressive gloom of Malachor V. Though her pet stayed at her side, faithful as ever, and Cole followed a few paces behind, she didn't think anything or anyone could put her at ease as long as she remained on this graveyard of a planet.

The loose ring formed around the landing zone by the towering tank droids was partially filled in by Republic troopers, who clustered in squads behind prefabricated flexisteel barricades. Kaevee didn't go right up to them, but walked along the inside of the ring close enough to see what was going on. A brief eruption of laser fire and more distant explosions drew her to the northwest side, which looked out from the base.

After about two hundred yards the more or less flat ground disappeared into a stomach-twisting expanse of towering, jagged mountains and spires separated by huge cracks and crevices which formed walking paths. Squinting out into the murky landscape, she saw movement as huge, lumbering forms emerged from those openings, making heavy footfalls against the dry earth. "The hell are those?" Cole asked warily from behind her.

The darkness of the plain was briefly lit a dazzling scarlet as the tank droids opened fire—next to their heavy lasers, the rifle fire from the troopers looked like sparks. They afforded a glimpse of the approaching figures: shambling bipedal lizards, easily a meter or so taller than any Human, burly and covered in scaly armor. After coming onto the level ground, the monsters dropped to all fours and charged.

They never came close to the landing zone. The droids' cannons blasted craters into the ground at their feet, put huge holes through their thick torsos, blasted their heads and limbs into pulp. Observing with repugnance as their dismembered remains collapsed into the smoke and darkness, Kaevee absently said, "Atton mentioned them. I think he called them storm beasts."

They came in waves, but each of their lethargic advances were rebuffed just as thoroughly in brief clamors of thunder and light, and soon enough the troopers stopped pitching in with their rifles.

Impelled by curiosity, Kaevee stretched out with the Force into the crevices of the ruinous landscape, where quickly enough she sensed one of the approaching storm beasts. In a way its mind felt about the same as that of her laigrek or any other animal, diffuse and vaporous, just a shade when compared to a sentient being's thoughts and sentiments. But there was another element there, something beyond words that just felt _wrong_. Everything on Malachor felt wrong, but there was a stronger trace of its dark taint in the storm beasts. It didn't feel quite strong enough to actually block her from bonding with the creature. All the same, she drew back as though she had touched something that turned out to be covered in filth.

She continued her circle around the inside of the landing zone, her eyes wandering. Between the mammoth transports and tank droids, the inhospitable landscape, and the stormswept skies, there was ugliness everywhere she looked. From the whispers that had reached her over the years, she had always known that something terrible had happened to Malachor V, but actually _being_ there… The sense of desolation was far worse than anything she had felt from the ruins of Dantooine. Dantooine's wound was personal; in an obscure way it felt almost comforting even as it pained her. Malachor, on the other hand, had no such connection, and that only made it worse; it was so monstrously huge as to swallow all personality, all meaning and memory of there being anything else in the galaxy.

"I am a Jedi, the Force is with me, I am a Jedi, the Force is with me," she murmured, calling to the light again and again, trying her best to center herself. And the Force was with her, but Malachor's corrupting atmosphere was constantly gnawing at her will and concentration. The clarity of her Force sense seemed to come and go at random, but when she had it, it was clearer than she would have expected. She could pick out Atton's signature, somewhat vague in its location, but distinctly _over there_, somewhere deep inside the base; and deeper, past him, darker presences…

She glanced up at the opaque sky, imagining the battle in orbit, thinking of Atris alone in her quarters aboard the _Valiant_. Kaevee wondered if her clarity of sense was entirely her own, or if the former Jedi was augmenting it from afar. Was she only able to see through the awful darkness of this world at all with Atris' help?

Returning to the dropship, she found Major Hawkins standing at the bottom of the ramp, flanked by two of his men. "Kaevee!" he called as she approached. "Have you sensed anything?"

The Padawan shook herself out of her wandering thoughts. "Um, no, I haven't. Sir."

The man nodded as though deeply satisfied. "That's good. But I need you to stay aboard the dropship. You'll be safer there in case we're attacked by anything worse than those irritating lizards. Is that clear?"

He was giving her orders. She was basically another soldier, as far as these people were concerned, but there was nothing she could do about it. "Yes—" The finality of his tone almost made her say, _Yes Master._ "—sir. Do you know how they're doing inside?"

Hawkins led the way up the ramp. "The battle's going well so far. The garrison is badly equipped and wasn't expecting an attack. The sentinel droids are already close to MSG Control, and our men should be inside there soon. Carry on." With that, he swiveled abruptly and marched off toward the bridge.

Putting him out of her mind, Kaevee went to the back of the ship, where they had been for the ride down. "Looks like we've just been worrying for nothing," Cole remarked as he lowered himself into a jumpseat.

Standing by the window, Kaevee turned and frowned at him.

"What's the matter, you disagree? We've got it easy—just hang back here and leave the fighting to the fighters."

"I'm not so sure," she said slowly, shaking her head. "Can't you feel something's wrong here?"

With some apparent reluctance, Cole let his smile fade. "No, can you? Do we need to sound the alarm?"

"No, it's just— This whole place, it's _evil_, it's full of darkness, it's… It's a trouble magnet. Just think of everything we've already been through. Why would things go _easy_ for us all of a sudden?"

"I dunno. Maybe the universe stopped hating us for a day. It's not _impossible_." There was a long, creaking chirp from the laigrek as it poked around under the nearby jumpseats. Nodding at the creature, Cole added, "Ah, see? He agrees with me. Let's keep a little optimism here."

Grimacing, Kaevee looked back out the window, eying the battle-scarred wall surrounding Singularity Base.

"Why can't you Jedi ever just be glad to be alive," Cole needled, "and let other people have some peace of mind, instead of—"

"Be quiet," Kaevee said forcefully as she lowered herself to the floor. "I need to concentrate."

"Oh, be my guest. Don't let _me_ disturb you."

Thinking better of wasting her breath on a retort, Kaevee shut her eyes and reached out with the Force again, but she found it more difficult than she had while walking outside the ship. Besides the aura of Malachor itself, every littlest sound jabbed at her concentration, from her laigrek moving about to Cole shifting on the jumpseat. And though it wasn't exactly the Force telling her, she could feel, she _swore_ she could feel her would-be bodyguard's resentful stare on her back.

Mentally repeating her mantra, she tried to brute-force through the distractions, pushing her perceptions out into to the landscape, sweeping the eyes of her mind back and forth, falling out of her focus and scrambling back in. The troopers in the landing zone and the hapless storm beasts, the idling ships and hulking tank droids, the twisted landscape and the monolithic form of Singularity Base—they appeared to her sometimes clear, sometimes indistinct, and sometimes hidden altogether, swallowed up in the planet's shadows. But through it all, she felt a constant, penetrating sort of sound that she at first took for the psychic residue of the firefights inside the base, the wordless expressions that accompanied injury and death. In time she realized that it was the planet itself; Malachor's sound was a chorus of screams. If she stopped to listen to it by itself, she thought she would lose her mind.

Minutes dragged by—ten minutes, thirty, five?—each one more draining and disturbing than the last, and Cole kept yawning or popping his knuckles, but Kaevee gritted her teeth and tried to persist, remembering that people were counting on her to be alert. But whenever she sensed the dark-siders, they were never anywhere near the dropships, only inside the base—with Atton and the others.

Then, without warning, the shadows parted completely and the sounds and other distractions of Kaevee's physical surroundings fell away. It was as though a beam from the sun had burst in through the roof of the dropship and fell on her alone, filling her with warmth and light. There was an unmistakable sort of personhood in the light as well, and she knew this time that it _was_ Atris.

And Atris was telling her, wordlessly, to open her eyes. Kaevee did so, and at once the sense of rapture left her.

Looking up through the dropship's window, she fancied she could see a cluster of solid shadows moving beneath the dome of Malachor's already restless storm clouds. The split-second backdrop of a lightning burst showed them to be huge winged creatures, perhaps a dozen, gliding into view from beyond the lip of Singularity Base's outer wall.

Amazement drew Kaevee to her feet as she stared. The first thing it made her think of was Dantooine's flat-bodied brith, which seemed to almost swim through the atmosphere. But she had only seen brith fly alone, not in packs, and though she had always found them impressive, they were delicate and flimsy compared to the gargantuan bulk that these creatures carried along. They had no legs; past their wicked-looking, spine-studded wings, each one's mammoth body gave way to a muscular tail that ended with a spike the size of a harpoon. Their arms were as thick around as the trunk of any blba tree, and their claws were as long as a man's arm.

As the creatures came overhead and started circling down toward the landing zone, Kaevee almost pressed her face to the glass as she tried to keep them in view. She started at the sound of Cole's voice beside her, but kept her eyes up. "Now what in the galaxy are _those_ things?"

"I've seen them in holos a long time ago," she realized, struggling with a hazy memory from some class in the Jedi Enclave. "I think they're called drexls."

"Okay… Don't suppose they'll just leave us alone?"

"No, I don't think so." Steeling herself, Kaevee reached out to the drexls as she had to the storm beasts—perhaps she could make the creatures go away, or even attack each other. Their minds felt strange. She expected the taint of the dark side, but there was also a kind of semi-solidity to their thoughts, as though each one had a hardened shell of purpose around its animal instincts, and Kaevee's own will broke against it like rain against stone. They were already under someone else's control.

Cole began to say something, but trailed off as a furious upward display of light began, a torrent of red rifle fire augmented by occasional large green pulses from the dropship's roof-mounted cannons. The former didn't seem to affect the drexls in their terrifyingly quick descent; the latter never hit them.

Seconds passed, and Kaevee heard Cole's comlink squawking with orders and chatter among the officers. She looked between the flashing skies and Cole's increasingly dismayed face, trying to keep her thoughts straight over the rising screams in the Force. Finally she broke and was just about to blurt out _What do we do?_ when the dropship shook from one end to the other. She fell against a jumpseat, covering her head, Cole braced himself against a wall, and the laigrek shrieked.

More awful noises followed, impacts against the ground as loud as bombs, and metal crumbling and tearing. Then Cole was crouching in the center aisle of the dropship, waving an arm in a frantic beckoning gesture. Unable to hear his shouts, Kaevee stumbled over to find him in the process of opening an emergency exit hatch in the floor.

The ship rocked once and a section of the port wall dented inward, shattering the nearby viewports and scattering transparisteel. The hatch opened and Cole went first, trying to slide down the five-meter ladder that had extended, but mostly just falling next to it. Kaevee followed in the same way, and the laigrek simply jumped.

Deep in shadow, the ground underneath the dropship felt stable, but Kaevee was unsure on her feet. Before she realized it, the spacer had gotten an arm around her and they were shuffling over to one of the landing struts. He let her go as they crouched behind it and tried to get their bearings.

The landing zone was in chaos, its interior swarming with Republic soldiers who moments before had been holding its outer perimeter. The drexls were strafing them mercilessly, their tails and clawed mandibles crushing and ripping, turning men into streaks of blood and pulverized heaps in their passing. More arresting but no less deadly were the monsters that had landed among the troops. Kaevee struggled to process the sight of them—their skin an eerie, almost luminescent purple, they seemed move across the ground by a combination of slithering and pulling themselves with their clawed digits. They drew bursts and streams of blaster fire from every direction, but even their massive, billowing wings seemed impervious. As they rampaged through the soldiers, their tails whipped back and forth, slamming into the sides of transports, denting and buckling their hulls.

The report of weapon fire intensified, and Kaevee recognized the heavier, ground-rattling din of the tank droids' weapons and explosive impacts. There were more screams of metal. Not really wanting to see where _that_ was happening, the Padawan stayed huddled against the landing strut, gaping out at the carnage. Desperately clutching the last of her nerves, she begged herself not to freeze, but to think, to act.

She managed to note that most of the soldiers who were still alive were running to the right, southeast, toward Singularity Base. As she parsed this out, Cole, who had been holding his comlink up to his ear and listening, put it away and jabbed her in the shoulder. "Major says get inside the base! Sounds like a good idea to me!"

Without waiting for a reply, he jogged to the other side of the dropship, facing the base's damaged wall, where he paused beside another landing strut. Following him with her pet in tow, Kaevee squinted and found the still-open door that Atton and the troops had taken to get inside. _No stupid, suicidal heroics,_ he had told her, _that's my job here._ She wished for a million things at that moment, wished that Atton had taken her with him, or that he had stayed. She wished that she was with Atris on the _Valiant_, or back on Dantooine, or anywhere else in the galaxy…

Cole looked back at her, nodded once, and sprinted out into the maelstrom. Sucking in a breath, Kaevee mentally told her laigrek to keep up and tore after him.

She might have expected the will of the Force to bear her through the welter of strife and horror that was the next few minutes, but if the Force was with her, there was no sense of that in her mind, only the singular, all-devouring thought of, _Get to the door, get to the door, get to the DOOR!_ She careened between and bounced off of Republic soldiers fleeing the same direction. She hurdled over or stepped on or in bodies or uncertain reddish masses that had once been bodies.

Far, near, and on every side the strafing drexls sliced huge, blurring paths of destruction between the landed starships, buffeting Kaevee with surges of wind that carried hails of dirt, blood, or other debris. Besides Human bodies, she passed huge mounds of steaming flesh and gristle; the tank droids had ponderously turned around and been casting their barrages of eye-searing firepower toward the handful of monsters that were rampaging exclusively on the ground.

Off to her left, beside the half-crumpled hull of a battle droid carrier, one such drexl was thrashing about on its side and letting out bellowing shrieks that carried even over the din of battle; its left arm and wing had been blown off. The landing zone flashed red amidst another heavy laser barrage, and the drexl's upper torso and the back half of the ship vanished into a shower of flame, shrapnel, and tissue.

Kaevee lost her footing and fell prone as the shockwave rattled the ground. Barely noticing, she crawled, got up and ran, fell and crawled again, got up and ran again. For a moment she was back to being twelve, and the Force wasn't with her. There were more explosions and more flames, and as their glow turned the landscape into a field of pyres, they looked the same as those on Dantooine, and the Force wasn't with her.

As she ran, causality and distinction seemed to unravel; her anguished legs carried her past the same toppled tank droids or smoking heaps of metal multiple times. She was looking for Emon as much as she was trying to follow Cole; she was on Dantooine, but Dantooine was somehow on Malachor, and Malachor was sucking everything down into whatever bottomless atrocity had happened there, where people were dead but still screaming.

The madness left her when that same beam of light in the Force found her again; the visions of the Enclave disappeared like banished shadows, and Malachor's hellish psychic noise fell behind the right-now noises of Kaevee's surroundings. She was running across the plain between the landing zone and the base, the skies thick above her, and the last of the soldiers spread out around her. Like each of them, she was dispassionately betting on the chance that the drexls might just miss her.

Remembering again where she was, she spotted Cole up ahead—Cole running for the door. _Get to the door._


	25. Armies

As with the Remote's memory banks, the datapads carried by Atton, Captain Hart, and each of the squad leaders contained all the information necessary for their mission, most importantly the codes that Atton had originally gotten from Bao-Dur. They were also supplied with detailed schematics of Singularity Base, but they had no real need of them. Their route was pretty well marked by a trail of Sith corpses. For every three or four maimed bodies in gleaming armor, there was the wreckage of one sentinel droid.

They marched or jogged through corridors, junctions, and rooms, blinking and wrinkling their noses as they passed through patches of white smoke that bled from the smoldering walls. They made a racket as they went, their boots crunching through fields of shattered glass and fragmented metal, kicking half-melted droids or mangled bodies or dropped weapons out of their way. But even through all that racket, they could make out the hell's song of laser fire that echoed down from the security zone.

Despite the amount of punishment they could take, the sentinel droids' tactical sense and maneuverability didn't match up to those of organic soldiers. So each barricade of Sith troopers they blew through still managed to whittle them down, until finally the last of them were doing what they could to help soften up the last of the defenders at the security zone, where the first waves of Republic troopers had already taken over the fighting.

Minutes passed. Along with Captain Hart, Atton had been stuck near the back of the company, because he was special and not expendable, and that was just the way it was in an army. He wasn't exactly being treated like a Jedi—they always liked to lead from the front—but he was supposed to be their trump card, the tie-breaker in case the enemy brought any Force-users of their own into play.

And he knew they would, at least a few, because he could sense them. As for exactly how many, and where… Like a single pair of footsteps in the middle of a stampede, or a few stray embers blowing through a forest fire, he found it impossible to pick out their Force signatures with the firefight going on up ahead. Malachor itself probably had something to do with it, but at any rate it was just too loud. Too much was going on. Meetra had talked about echoes, sharing the poison she'd gotten from the old witch, but when you were right next to the source of the echoes, they were just plain _noises_.

Hopefully the kid back at the LZ had fresher ears than he did.

Up ahead, somebody stumbled and almost tripped after stepping on something. The next few soldiers after him kicked the something against the wall, and as Atton passed he saw that it was a severed Sith trooper's head, anonymously encased in its armored helmet. He looked at Captain Hart, who looked back at him and gave a little shrug. Atton realized that the officer was younger than himself, and briefly wondered how much younger.

And the next thing he knew, he was there. He was a guy with a blaster following another guy with a blaster who was following another guy with a blaster who shouted, "GO!" and the force of a direct order carried them around a corner and into the line of fire.

Security Zone C was murderously simple. Most of the large, rectangular room was partitioned into five narrow aisles, each supporting a series of scanning devices that scientists, operators, and other personnel were supposed to pass through before entering MSG Control. There was no cover to speak of for either side; desks, screens, and security arches had long since been shot or blown to pieces, reducing the aisles to two-way shooting galleries, where the best anyone could do was crouch and hug the wall or crawl across the carpet of mangled machinery and smoking corpses.

The squads of Sith troopers down at the end had to be low on ammo and weary from the onslaught they had been weathering, but they had the luxury of staying still as they flooded the smoke-hazed corridor with blaster fire. Meanwhile the Republic army bled its way down the aisles meter by meter, stepping on or between bodies and debris, returning fire and slinging the occasional frag grenade. The guy in front was shot so that the guy behind him could make it another few steps before he got shot, so that the guy behind _him_ could make it a few more. It was the familiar, eon-old logic of the unit: men died and the army went on.

Staying in line, Atton brought his rifle up and charged in, as fast as one could charge on that awful terrain. Going step by step, he fired up the corridor at enemies that only his intuition, or the Force, could really see. Even as he started in it was evident that the resistance was crumbling—the defenders were saving their shots. They had held the line against fifty men in this strip alone… Or how many red-clad bodies was he stepping on and over? Who was counting, except for generals and the like? But on some level numbers did matter—it was just like pazaak, except the totals went up into the hundreds or thousands instead of twenty. Throw as many decks on the table as you can fit.

Two red bolts hit the man in front of Atton, one right after the other, the first burning into his chest, then another passing through to put a pock mark onto a wall which was already black with them. The man fell forward like a ragdoll, and like a soldier, Atton stepped around him, replying to the Sith on his behalf with a semi-controlled burst of fire.

The squad Atton had come in with, what was left of it, was two thirds of the way down the aisle. As bolts tore into the wall around him and showered him with shards of metal, he got a sense of a bigger, fist-sized metal thing, also in midair. He couldn't see the frag grenade at all, or hear it as it landed among the corpses a meter ahead of him. Slowing his steps just a little, he scooped it up with his mind and flung it back down the aisle. The Sith didn't see it either. There was no scream to take cover, just an ear-gouging popping noise, a lull in the enemy fire, and more smoke.

One more meter, then another. Fire, suppressing fire, return fire, duck, move. Atton didn't smile, didn't even think about it at all in the moment, but in a way, playing war again was fun, at least for the time it took him to advance down that aisle. No lightsabers in sight. He had the Force, but there were no philosophies. No old friends, nobody really to care about. No love, no hate. No Jedi, no grand designs, no plans, no Meetra. Just him and soldiers and a few lines of fire and a million ways to die.

The next thing he knew, he was out of it. The partitions ended, and the Republic army finally disgorged itself into the last section of the security zone. What appeared to be the final pocket of defenders was bunched up behind a couple of impromptu barricades formed by overturned machinery, which were now rickety and half-gutted by damage. As they fell under a deluge of red fire, a smattering of stray bolts went behind them and dissipated harmlessly against the dark gray face of the last barrier before MSG Control. It was a circular blast door, large enough for three people, formed by pointed wedges of five-inch duramentium plating which joined in the center.

The noise of battle died along with the Sith, leaving only footfalls, coughs, and the clicks and murmurs of equipment. Hovering close to the aisle's opening, Atton checked his rifle's power cell as troopers swarmed, taking up new positions and leveling their weapons at the blast door. Not far away he saw Captain Hart surveying the carnage with grim satisfaction, a comlink held up to his mouth. "We'll be inside MSG Control soon," he was saying. "Reed, how's it looking back there?"

Atton was just about to pull out his own comlink when there was a mechanical roar as the portal ahead of him opened, its teeth-like segments retracting into the wall. It wasn't even halfway open when Republic troopers started spraying it with laser fire. Several arms flicked into view from the other side, flinging grenades between the disappearing metal teeth. One was neatly severed by a single bolt from someone's heavy rifle, but others followed up, and metal spheres bounced and rolled into the room, sending troopers diving for what little cover they could find. Somebody shouted, "SONIC!" Letting go of his rifle, Atton ducked and covered his ears.

He willed the Force to shield him from the worst of it, but wasn't sure it did. Though he was a good way off, the bursts put a little ring in his ears, and a rough, tingling wave of energy rattled his bones and turned his stomach upside-down. Looking up, he saw that the troopers who had been caught by the blasts were still in one piece, stumbling or crawling, deafened, away from the door. That was a bit puzzling. Non-lethal sonics didn't seem like a Sith weapon of choice, unless they were desperate.

Then again, _desperate_ was exactly the right word to describe the Sith troopers—the _real_ last line of defense, surely—who were practically shouldering past each other as they came barreling out of the opened blast door. But the room was still full of Republic troopers, and getting fuller, and their laser fire shredded the brazen counter-attackers almost as fast as they appeared. Atton felt no pity at all as he took up his rifle again and started chipping in, and he soon found that he had reason for his stridency. The Sith had tossed a few smoke grenades as well as sonic ones, and the entire wall began to disappear behind a billowing white cloud.

But the Republic army was unfazed; there couldn't be another whole garrison on the other side of the door. They simply declared total war on the cloud, flooding it with such a thick onslaught of fire that it flashed like a bloody red lightning storm. Squinting against the dazzling mess, Atton again fell back on his intuition and the Force to pick out his targets.

Then things went real wrong, real quick.

At first it was just the occasional mirror-armored body that would flop out of mist, riddled with glowing wounds and missing the occasional limb or head. Then they started running straight out with suicidal velocity, drawing some fire before sprawling on the ground halfway to the Republic troopers. Then corpses started rolling or catapulting out, twisting in midair and landing among their startled opponents.

As confusion and dismay spread through the ranks and the rate of fire decreased, Atton noticed that the smoke had turned red, but not from the flashing of lasers. It was a solid tinge, he realized, cast by a series of lights from within, lights that were moving to the fore…

And he knew what was coming.

As his hearing returned, he picked out Captain Hart's voice again. Glancing back, he saw the officer shouting orders to his last squads who had finally arrived, having them set up defensive positions. But a bunch of them were facing back the way they had come, to cover the _rear_. That could only mean one thing. Reed and his men had failed, and they were about to be caught in a pincer.

Atton returned his attention to the front just in time to see a dozen black-garbed Sith warriors come charging out of the expanding smoke and into the midst of the Republic troopers. Their red lightsabers traced whirling arcs before them—first through air, then through flesh and bone.

A Human Sith Acolyte in loose black garb appeared right in front of Atton, his red lightsaber slicing through Atton's blaster rifle _right_ before where his hand was on the barrel. Whether or not the Sith Acolyte recognized him, it was a safe bet that he expected Atton, like any common scrapper, to drop what remained of his weapon, run backwards, and trip over a corpse or something and fall on his ass. It was for this reason, and for many reasons like it, that Atton still made sure to dress like a common scrapper.

In the next fraction of a second, while the Acolyte was still winding up for his follow-up slash, Atton rammed the still-glowing, yellow-hot end of the rifle into his eye. The man dutifully screamed, and as he reflexively tried to complete his swing, Atton stayed inside his reach and hit him again, this time smashing his nose. His balance and momentum gone, the man fell on his back, and Atton followed him down and slammed the rifle against his skull repeatedly until it seemed a good bet that he wouldn't be getting up again.

Around him, the security zone had reached a new level of pandemonium. The initial charge of the Sith had broken the Republic ranks, scattering troops in all directions amid bursts of reflected blaster fire and the furious dopplering hums of lightsabers.

Of the dozen or so Sith who had charged in, it looked like they were mostly Acolytes, with a handful of Marauders thrown in. The former were known by their standard black tunics, rudimentary Force training, and unparalleled recklessness. The latter, being the Sith's aspiring dueling specialists, had more years on them, superior speed and control, and wore light armor on their torsos and forearms. Just about all of them had single hilts, but a few of the Marauders were twirling two lightsabers through the mayhem.

True to the stereotype, they showed no tactical thought or teamwork skills at all. As they slashed or deflected blaster shots at whatever soldiers happened to be right in front of them, it was clear that their battle precognition was the only thing saving them from accidentally hacking each other to pieces. Their wrath and glee spilled into the Force as they flung themselves about the room, reveling in the chaos and confusion. They were less like fighters on a battlefield than kretch in a feeding frenzy.

To their credit, the Republic troopers bit back as hard as they could. Some strafed around the saber-spinning attackers, putting them in crossfire, while others drew vibroblades and went at them man-to-man. Maimed troopers who lay sprawled among the bodies used their last seconds to pull out backup pistols or take-you-with-me grenades, or even just to grab at a black boot and maybe trip one of the bastards up. Sith died, and they died like they always did, arrogantly amazed to find themselves tumbling down smoking or bloodied or in pieces just like anyone else. Even so, for every one of them it was a dozen or more troopers—just like how, a lifetime ago, it had been a dozen or so troopers for every measly Jedi.

Looking up, Atton saw another, taller silhouette coming through the smoke with lightsaber held to guard. He sprang to his feet and tossed the ruined blaster rifle ahead. Without slowing down at all, the Acolyte deftly sliced it in two and emerged from the cloud, revealing himself to be a Cerean, whose oversized head accounted for his greater height.

_Play the minus-four card, puts us at fourteen-nine…_ As Atton drew one of the pistols from his belt and brought it to bear, he felt the Force guiding the approaching Sith Acolyte's movements and syncing them up with his own. The Cerean's grip on his lightsaber shifted, angling it so the blade would send Atton's blaster bolt right back into his face.

Which would have worked out just fine for the guy if not for the fact that Atton had drawn a sonic pistol, not a blaster, and unfortunately the difference between those two weapons was something you had to take the time learn on your own—Force precognition wasn't so hot on little distinctions like that. The lightsaber absorbed some energy from the blurring silver orb, but it still came out the other side well enough to smash the Cerean's chest cavity and blow him off his feet.

Atton coughed and moved back from the smoke, relying on his own battle precognition to keep at least a few millimeters between him and stray blaster fire. Having his own lightsaber out would have made that hazard easier to manage, but it would also draw a lot of attention, so he stuck with just the sonic pistol. Briefly, he wanted to put the weapon to use at the scanning aisles where more Sith, or at any rate somebody who wanted him dead, were coming from behind. But there was no way he was going to get there quickly with the battle this thick.

Ultimately, the Republic troops' survival depended on simply whittling the Sith's numbers down fast enough, so Atton decided not to be picky about which one he killed first. The lightsabers had his targets marked out for him, but they were erratically moving targets, and with friendlies routinely stumbling in front of them, he had to spend more precious seconds on aiming than he would have liked.

He took down two just in time to see a fresh gaggle of Human Sith Marauders appear out of one of the scanning aisles, stomping their way through the dismembered remains of the squads who had tried to hold them back. Their lightsabers weaved a dazzling shield against incoming blaster fire. One of them—the biggest, meanest-looking one, who was also a dual-wielder—caught sight of Atton as he brought the sonic pistol to bear and wisely sidestepped, allowing the sonic orbs to flash past him. At the same time one of his comrades tracked a frag grenade that someone had tossed to their feet and telekinetically threw it back into the midst of the firefight. But apparently they had missed a second one, because the Marauders all scattered in a rush of Force-leaps, prompted by a last-minute warning in the Force—just before another grenade went off right behind them. A single Marauder who had been at the rear of the group fell on his face, the back of his armored torso and the back of his unarmored head pocked with shrapnel.

The Sith Atton had shot at landed ten paces away, a distance which Atton was decidedly less than thrilled about. Just as he fired again, his pistol tried to jump out of his hand, and his shot went wide. He tried to brace himself with the Force, but then the gun took off so fast that his arm might have gone across the room with it if he hadn't let go. Looking about, he saw an Acolyte coming for him from the right, a leather-faced Weequay, shouldering and slashing Republic troops out of his way.

He came in fast and made a long-reaching stab for Atton's chest. Atton drew his lightsaber and slapped it aside at the last second, then backed away. The Acolyte pursued, following up with several more jabs. Atton kept his distance as he parried, mimicking his opponent's one-handed, I-like-my-personal-space style. Makashi wasn't really his thing, but he knew it when he saw it.

A few more seconds and the Sith Marauder closed the distance, slashing with both blades, one high and one low. Atton hopped just out of range, then strafed and put the Weequay between him and the Marauder. He pushed with the Force, hoping to throw the Acolyte into his partner, but the Acolyte flipped into the air, and the invisible wave of energy instead hit the Marauder, who was only slowed down a step as he absorbed it.

The Force warned Atton as the other Sith landed right behind him, and he retreated again, keeping the flurry of their blades ahead of him. The Marauder's fighting style was straightforward enough—slash two or three times a second until you've killed something—but he was taller than Atton, and strong enough that Atton could scarcely block his attacks one-handed.

The Weequay was more sparing in his attack, waiting for Atton's saber to be tied up with the Marauder's before flashing in to stab at his arm or shoulder. Suddenly, though, he broke off, twisting and bringing his blade to the side just in time to catch a few blaster bolts from some far-off Republic soldier. He was devious about it, angling his blade to send one of them toward Atton, but Atton, who was never good at accepting gifts, deflected it toward the Marauder, who in turn swatted it into the floor.

The unseen soldier didn't fire again. Just as the Weequay began to turn back to the duel, Atton reached with the Force and pulled a blast of power at him from behind, knocking him onto his knees in front of his partner, who recoiled and narrowly avoided maiming him with his lightsabers. The Acolyte braced himself against the floor with one hand, preventing a rougher landing, and managed to block as Atton made a lazy downward slash at him.

While both their sabers were crossed over the Weequay's head, Atton drew one of the blaster pistols from his belt and shot him in the face. Most Acolytes really were just chumps if you knew what you were doing.

Marauders, not so much. Before the Weequay's blade had even winked out, Atton's other friend had hopped over his late partner's corpse and continued driving him back with a punishing round of blows. Atton let go of his pistol as it was sliced in half. Blocking two-handed put him at less of a disadvantage, but the Sith still had all of the fight's momentum. Falling back on muscle memory for the swordplay, he mentally enveloped his surroundings in the Force and imagined painting his opponent with a targeting laser.

One after another, fallen weapons and chunks of debris sprang from the ruined floor and launched themselves at the Marauder from all sides. Gritting his teeth, he ducked and twisted this way and that, dodging or slicing the impromptu missiles out of the air. Though he managed to keep one blade in the duel, it cost him when a detached helmet missed his other saber by the width of a maalraas' whisker and glanced off the side of his skull.

Leaving off the telekinetic attack, Atton took his cue and swung a power blow at the Sith Marauder's head. But even with his eyes squeezed shut in anguish, the son of a bitch caught Atton's blade between both of his own, just inches before his forehead. They closed in on each other and pressed, lightsabers squealing and hissing, white plasma sparking as the power cells warred with one another. Sweat ran down their faces—and blood down the Marauder's—as they shifted and twisted their grips, jerking the weapons a few inches one way, a few inches another. Just one good nick on a shoulder or a face, and the duel wouldn't last much longer after that.

Atton felt like his wrists were about ready to crack, and his knees began to bend as the Sith bore down on him, a guttural howl muffled behind his gritted teeth. The lightsabers drifted closer and closer to his face until the death-light of their clash filled his eyes. As he fell to one knee, he desperately shunted upward, leaving the Marauder's weapons crossed right over his head, his white-knuckled grip just barely keeping the sizzling blade of his own lightsaber from splitting his brain in two.

His mind racing, he turned his eyes upward, trying through the haze of energy to get a clear look at exactly where the red blades were. At least, he was _pretty sure_ they were right above his head, and not just level with his skullcap…

Deciding he didn't have much brains left to lose if he was wrong, Atton thumbed his lightsaber's power button, and its beam vanished. Being suddenly offered no resistance, the twin blades swung wide, missing Atton's skull but perhaps taking some hair off the top. Before the Marauder could recover his guard—or his wits—Atton reactivated his saber and sliced him in half down the middle. He winced, watching the pieces fall in opposite directions, adding yet more grisly ornaments to the floor.

He slowly stood up, pulling the Force into himself to soothe his aching joints and recover his strength, and to get a sense of where the battle around him had gone. The first thing he noticed was how the background noise of blasters and other weapons, though still present, had drastically reduced.

"Rand!" somebody shouted. "Help!"

He turned. Between him and the blast door stood a cluster of vibroblade-toting Republic soldiers, facing outward as a ring of Sith circled them like rock-vultures. One of them, another Marauder, broke off and sauntered toward Atton. "You can have these pups," he scoffed. "That traitor's mine." Despite his words, two more Acolytes disengaged and trotted after him.

Bringing his lightsaber back to guard, Atton stepped between the pieces of the Marauder he'd killed. _Lucky,_ he thought. _I'm just a lucky guy._


	26. Heroics

Lord Silbus' cloak rustled through the air behind him as he strode imperiously down the scanning aisle of Security Zone E, his underlings close behind and the living thorn in his side, Visas Marr, right beside him. Major Vasch had committed almost every last one of his puny toy soldiers to the battle at Security Zone C. This area was so comfortably distant that not even the faintest echo of the mayhem could reach it. When they emerged into the last section of the room, it turned out to have exactly two unfortunate souls guarding it, common troopers flanking the huge blast door leading to MSG Control.

"My lords—my lady," one of them cried as he sighted Silbus and Marr. "How—"

"Stop impeding us and open the door at once, fool!" the Headmaster thundered disdainfully as he and his train came to a halt before them.

After blubbering an apology as Humans were wont to do, the trooper typed an excessively lengthy security code into the door's ray-shielded control panel. Mechanical mechanisms groaned and whined, and the trooper scurried out of the way to stand at attention beside his confederate.

"I hear the battle is not going well," rumbled Zanjo Fel, eying the two guards. Silbus raised a brow, sensing at once that the Iktotchi was reaching out with the Force, sending his will slithering into their feeble, unprotected minds.

"Eh… Not going well, my lord?"

"Not well at all," Zanjo elucidated, his voice rising ominously. "It is a hopeless conflict—we shall all perish. We are doomed. Doomed!"

"Doomed," the troopers parroted in dreadful unison, completely under his spell.

"You must flee for your lives, or the _Jedi_ will get you! RUN! _RUN!_"

The fools set off at a sprint, dropping their rifles as they went. One of them tripped over his and fell head over heels, his armor making a tremendous racket as he crashed into a desk. But in a second he was on his feet again, fleeing in terror and wailing for his partner to wait up for him, while the Force-augmented echo of Zanjo Fel's hysterical, maniacal laughter chased them down the scanning aisle. Yaiban exercised some restraint as he watched them go, but an amused twitch still played across his lips. Marr and the assassins stood placid and unmoved, as though nothing at all had happened.

Meanwhile, the blast door had finished opening.

"I sometimes think you are hopeless, Zanjo," Silbus chided as they swept down the hallway toward MSG Control. It wasn't that he had any pity for the soldiers, and it did demonstrate that his student had taken to his lessons well. But such juvenile antics were beneath a practitioner of the dark side—especially if he wasn't going to inflict any lasting harm—and he knew that Zanjo knew it.

"Indeed, Headmaster," the Iktotchi intoned with false solemnity.

Rather than continue to belabor the point, Silbus shook his head in disgust and turned his thoughts aside.

Lacking any familiarity with MSG Control or with the base at large, the Sith had consulted the bumbling Major Vasch for a final time. He had warned that their quarry's objective was likely to be one of several master control consoles, spread across the innermost wall of MSG Control. Since Atton Rand and his Jedi accomplices could theoretically come in through any one of the five security zones providing access, Marr and her cohorts would have to spread out and cover each one. Silbus, meanwhile, would be minding the most likely entrance, the one linked to Security Zone C; no matter where they came in, the meddlers would be outnumbered and outclassed several times over.

As much as the Headmaster's spirit was kindled with anticipation at the chance to make these enemies suffer for the damage they had done, he reflected morosely that that would be a mere consolation prize. He loathed this exertion and danger and hoped that Atton and his friends would die quickly—immediately after killing Marr, ideally—thus allowing him to get on with the business of moving in on the academy at Thule and returning to his beloved work…

* * *

Things were quiet. For the moment.

Kaevee was trying to pull herself back together, to return to the sense of Jedi tranquility that she had so briefly grasped while back at the landing zone. Or perhaps she had never grasped it at all, and it was Atris who had given it to her. The Padawan repeated her mantra until it became part of her breathing, part of the agonized work of her weary heart and lungs, but peace eluded her, and even the presence of the Force itself seemed very tenuous. Struggling to manage her frustration, she compulsively kicked her heels against the empty storage container that she was sitting on, and she winced as she raked her fingers through her knotted hair.

"We can't go back for it," said Cole for the fourth or fifth time as he paced nearby.

"I _know_."

"Then stop _staring_. Just stop. You're making me nervous."

Kaevee wiped her eyes again and looked despairingly about the room. It was a rounded, Y-shaped junction off one of the main corridors, connecting it to two secondary ones. All of them seemed deserted. There was a stink of ozone and the walls were pocked with blaster impacts, but the absence of any corpses suggested that this area's defenders had retreated almost at first sight of the invading sentinel droids.

About forty men had escaped the landing zone alive, and they were spread about the junction. A squad was bunched up around each of the doors, including the one they had entered through, which was the one that Cole kept telling Kaevee to stop staring at. Less than a stone's throw away, in the middle of the room, Major Hawkins and a few officers were holding a discussion around a holographic map of the facility.

Cole passed in front of her again, his words tumbling out of his mouth twice as fast as usual. "Just thank your Force _we_ got in here alive, kid, and those monsters are too big to follow us. I'm telling you, you've got to keep perspective here, it's just a—"

_Shut up,_ Kaevee thought. "Be quiet," she said instead. "Please."

He shrugged and looked away as he continued his aimless walk, but kept babbling. "We weren't supposed to be here, it wasn't supposed to go this way. I run cargo, I'm not a damn soldier, I was never supposed to be…" All told, he seemed to have gotten plenty nervous on his own, since the drexls' attack.

Kaevee closed her eyes, trying to banish her feelings, or at least get them to calm down a little. There were so many—guilt, worry, embarrassment. Anger at herself, at Cole, at everyone. Loss.

She had lost her laigrek. Everything had happened so fast at the landing zone, and then there was that horrifying, mad rush to get into the base. Only after they had gotten into the junction and the major was taking a headcount had Kaevee noticed the creature's absence.

On a certain level, she was baffled that it hurt so much. She had always taken the laigreks for granted—they were merely the servants of the Jedi. And when this single one had inexplicably followed her from the Enclave, off of Dantooine and into the dangerous galaxy, she'd never felt much different toward it. Now it was gone, almost certainly crushed or devoured by one of the drexls, and its absence left a wound in her—or, more accurately, it seemed to expand the wound left by the loss of the Enclave, Emon, and all the Jedi.

She warred within herself, wondering if the laigrek was still alive, if it had in fact just been separated from her and was even then somewhere in the base, compelled by the Force to seek out its master. Several times she reached out, but could sense nothing of the creature—only dark things. The tainted presences of the drexls as they circled in the stormswept skies, the infernal ambiance of Malachor itself, the signatures of dark-siders elsewhere in the base, and the Force-blighting din of the battle raging deeper inside.

The Padawan was drawn out of her thoughts when four men appeared at one of the exits—soldiers, but not ones from the landing zone. As they were escorted to the major, Kaevee stood and went over, close enough to hear the conversation.

The first of the newcomers, some Private Foster, told the major their names and ranks. "We're all that's left of Lieutenant Reed's platoon. Dark Jedi attacked, a dozen of them, came out of the side corridors. Ripped through us like nothing…" He trailed off, breathing deeply and shaking his head at the ground.

"That explains why Reed wouldn't answer his comlink," one of the other officers remarked grimly to the major. "It must've happened right as _we_ were getting attacked by the drexls."

Foster looked up, his already pained face contorting in still greater dismay. "_Drexls?_"

"Not important right now," Major Hawkins replied impenetrably. "What happened to these Dark Jedi? Where did they go?"

"They swept up the main corridor, through our positions, one by one—"

"To take Hart and his men from behind."

Foster nodded weakly. "We commed the captain to warn him. But that was a while ago now."

"No wonder there's been no report from him either," Major Hawkins said. He dismissed the four soldiers and turned back to the map, his eyes flicking across Kaevee as he did so. For an ugly moment there was silence except for the hum of the holoprojector on the floor.

"A _dozen_ Dark Jedi," someone said. "They're all supposed to have been pulverized along with their academy."

Kaevee shivered and glanced about, only to find Cole had not followed her and was still pacing back where they'd been before.

"We knew some might be in the base," said the major, "but at any rate, there's nothing we can do about it now. Those bastards won't have had surprise on their side—and Rand is up there with Hart. They'll do their job, and we'll do ours: find a way out so we don't all die on this rock. Let's try one of the hangars."

Moments passed as the soldiers prepared to move out, and presently Hawkins again asked Kaevee if any of the Sith were nearby. After taking a moment to concentrate, she found the shadows thin enough to be able to confidently answer that no, they all seemed to be far inside the base where the fighting was. Privately, she had to wonder if the major really put any stock in her Force abilities, or if he only kept consulting her because he'd been ordered to. He was a complete picture of military calm—and indifference—and gave no exterior sign either way. He asked her whether she sensed anything in exactly the same way that he kept asking one of his officers if Captain Hart or Atton had answered their comlink yet. Like Kaevee, the officer always answered no; he added that there were occasional spurts of dense interference, suggesting that a Sith jamming device, knocked out by the _Monitor_'s bombardment, was coming back online.

Kaevee and Cole followed close behind the major as the formation tramped through Singularity Base, leaving behind the parts where the fighting had been heaviest. They took a few side corridors and occasionally cut through storage areas, machine shops, and small office wings. Though there were no guards or ambushes, they were repeatedly halted by security force fields or blast doors. But each time, an officer at the front plugged his datapad into a nearby console, and a moment later the barrier opened.

They passed through a mess hall where tables were covered with abandoned trays of food and drink. The smell was not unpleasant, but Kaevee did not welcome this reminder of the simpler, saner things in life. Maintenance droids which resembled repulsor-equipped trash cans hovered about, attending to several large spills. As they passed by one of them, Cole made an unpleasant sound in his throat and spat on the floor beside it. The droid squawked indignantly at him, and a nearby trooper snickered.

Down another hallway, the soldiers at the front turned a corner. There was a shout of "Contact!" followed by a brief report of blaster fire. When Kaevee and Cole came around, they saw the men dragging two dead Sith troopers out of the way of yet another blast door, which was already grinding its way open. Their objective, one of Singularity Base's main hangars, lay beyond.

It was a huge room, big enough that the convoy of transports could've landed here, had they been able to blast through the curved, thick-armored bay door that formed the western wall. Flocks of shuttlecraft were nestled up near the ceiling, cradled within huge robotic docking claws, while a row of troop transports sat on the black metal deck. Though buttressed by thick landing struts and studded with laser turrets, the elevated command decks and rounded sides of their hulls lent them some resemblance to archaic submersibles. The hangar had another entrance on the opposite wall. Scattered about were parked hover-ferries and forklifts, containers, and big lumps of obscure machinery that must have been cannibalized starship components. A few of them sat in the middle of shining, dark-hued puddles.

A double-size door on the left wall led to an expansive, windowed control room, where a firefight ended just as quickly as it began. Major Hawkins hovered about, bellowing orders. As the soldiers began to swarm all over the place, Kaevee looked at the big gray transports and wrinkled her nose. The air stank of something like burnt oil.

"I don't like it," she remarked. "This was too easy."

"You remember what happened the last time you said something like that?" Cole's look of hostility quickly faded, though, and he seemed calmer than before. "Well, don't worry, we're not out of this yet." He spat on one gloved hand and wiped it over the top of a nearby crate, collecting a thick smudge of grimy black dust. "_Look_ at this place," he said, wiping it off. "Doesn't seem like they've been taking care of it. I think we'll be lucky if any of these ships are fueled. Probably need to slice into the controls, get the hangar doors open. We better hope Atton doesn't turn on that doomsday machine _too_ soon…"

"Terrick!" barked a voice. It was the major, striding their way. "Those transports are locked up tight. You know anything about slicing?"

"I— Uh, yeah, a little," stammered Cole, suddenly looking embarrassed.

Hawkins pointed at one of the transports, where a couple of men were clustered around its hatch. "Then go see if you can give Hanz a hand."

"Yeah, right away," Cole said, but the major was already hurrying off toward the control room. The spacer looked at Kaevee, rolled his eyes, and left her in the center of the hangar. "Just look at this dump," he grumbled as he went.

The Padawan slowly wandered through the hangar, trying to concentrate on maintaining her Force sense—and on holding back her dread. She hoped Atton was all right.

* * *

Atton might've expected the place to be quiet once everyone was finally dead, but it wasn't. For a start, there was the deep, monotonous blare of some klaxon—it had always been there, but sound of the battle had drowned it out. Charred, half-molten computers and other machinery hissed and pinged. Wires and conduits spat sparks as they dangled from the ceiling. From time to time, there was a burst from a rifle—but the same rifle each time, not several trading fire. The blade of the lightsaber in Atton's hand fizzled and crackled like a hungry flame as he turned this way and that, emerging from the haze of war.

Just a few meters to his right, the huge, dark disk of the blast door stood embedded in the savaged wall, its duramentium surface the only thing in the room that hadn't suffered a scratch. The Sith must have shut it after them when they had charged through.

He took a step, tripped over something—someone—and fell to one knee among the burned bodies that nearly carpeted Security Zone C. He extinguished the saber and put it on his belt, holstered the blaster that was in his other hand, and grabbed a rifle that someone had dropped. He checked its power cell and rose, steadying himself.

There were more noises. Muffled, gasping screams. Whimpers. Tight, determined voices. He looked toward the latter sound. In front of the scanning aisles, two battered Republic soldiers were crouching, fumbling with a medpack beside a third man who writhed on the ground, his left hand and right forearm gone. Not far away, two others were stumbling toward them. They were carrying another wounded, this one clutching his own severed right arm to his chest. His eyes were squeezed shut, and he was murmuring and babbling to himself.

A handful of other troopers were combing through the devastation, searching the sea of corpses for more survivors. They all went in pairs except for one, who had his rifle out and trained on the floor. Every time he saw a black-clad body, he shot it four or five times.

Atton took inventory of himself. A few spots on his jacket were smoking. More bruises. A rib or two felt cracked—or close enough. Down by his ankle there was a rip in his pantleg and a lot of dried blood beneath. His backpack, and its important contents—the Remote and his datapad—were intact.

He seemed to himself to be both incredibly alive and practically dead at the same time. Yes, in a way he _did_ feel like letting his limbs go, feel like falling to the floor right then and there and crashing into a sleep that could last for a decade. But the greater part of him felt like he could keep going, keep fighting for just as long. It hadn't been like this on Daluuj. What had changed? Was it the place that mattered? Malachor was full of power, and like Atton himself, it was full of war.

Shouldering his rifle, he joined the soldiers as they gathered survivors. While helping them search, he kept an eye out for useful gear. He never found his sonic blaster and had to settle for an extra pistol. In case something happened to his lightsaber, he picked up somebody's vibroblade, making sure it was the kind with the cortosis weave. A bandolier of assorted grenades wouldn't hurt. And someone had dropped a few sticky mines—looked like the trip-laser type. Those went in his backpack.

The search went on and ended with little talk. When it was done, they found that twenty-four of Captain Hart's men were still alive. Twelve were wounded, and of those twelve, most were missing limbs and unable to walk by themselves or at all. No squad medics were among the survivors, but with the contents of a few strewn medpacks, they were able to get the wounded stabilized for the time being. Nobody knew where the captain's body was.

The men who were able stood clustered around the wounded they had laid out, staring at the mess of a room, their blasters dangling from their hands. One of them was fiddling with a comlink, cursing at the device as it spat distorted, electrical noises at him. He glanced up as Atton approached, running a hand through his mussed blond hair. "We're being jammed," he explained. "I'm trying to reach the major."

"Don't need _his_ permission to retreat, do we?" asked someone else. Nobody bothered to reply.

Atton looked from one bloodied, grizzled, miserable face to the next. As any level-headed commander would view it, there was no other option. This battered collection of half-dead survivors couldn't be expected to continue on. Even if there hadn't been any wounded in need of evac, there was likely to be one more pocket of defenders in MSG Control itself.

He set his immediate surroundings aside for a brief moment, turning his mind's eye away toward the end goal… and yes, there was a gaggle of dark-siders hanging around in there. One of the presences was noticeably the strongest, practically oozing the high opinions he had of himself… It was familiar.

_Figures it's that fracking guy,_ Atton thought. Reaching behind himself, he opened his backpack and jostled it a little. "Hey, wake up," he said over his shoulder.

The Remote floated out and bobbed inquisitively in the air beside him, beeping that he was ready and asking for a command. Business only.

Atton looked pointedly from the droid to the blast door and nodded once. As it extended its data port and floated off, a nearby trooper noticed and began to say something. Just then, however, the one guy's comlink made a high-pitched squeal, and its distortion gave way to the static-tinged voice of Major Hawkins. "—aptain Hart… Rand… Do you copy?"

Atton spun around and grabbed the comlink.

* * *

Minutes dragged by in the hangar, and Kaevee's anxiety was soon tempered by a deceptively ordinary sense of boredom as she went about, more or less beneath everyone's notice.

The men at the transport successfully bypassed its hatch lock. Whether Cole's help had made a difference or not wasn't certain, but he went inside with them. While killing time loitering in the control room where the major and the officers were, Kaevee observed as one of the soldiers-turned-mechanics repeatedly jogged in to report on their progress.

"She's got power, sir, but the main controls are locked."

Later, "She's got fuel, sir, but there seems to be some corrosion on the cycler."

And then a little later, "New problem, sir—the coupler for her inertial dampener's broken. We found a spare one in her cargo hold, but we're gonna need a plasma torch to get the old one out."

Every few minutes it was a new problem, or a new step to solve an older problem. Remembering Atton's lessons about the _Ebon Hawk_, Kaevee tried to follow along. Though she recognized some of the components that were mentioned, she soon lost track and instead started wondering why people called starships _she_ or _it_, but never _he_.

The sound of Atton's voice, slightly distorted, jolted her out of her thoughts. Turning around, she found the major and his officers gathered around a comlink that sat on one of the control panels before the window. "…before the Sith jam us again," the pilot was saying. "What's the situation?"

"The landing zone is compromised," Major Hawkins explained brusquely. "We're inside the base in hangar bay two, trying to get a transport ready for evac. What's your status?"

Kaevee thought at first that Atton was sighing into the comlink, but that turned out to be an undulating wave of static. "Attacked by Sith," he said, "from ahead and behind. They're all dead now…" The distortion came back, thicker than before, in bursts that cut his sentences to pieces. "…ty-four left, half of them wounded… take corridor D-27 to the hangar… going to need escort, if you can spare any—" The rest of his words were drowned out as the electric noise spiked to a fever pitch and stayed there, forming a single grating, meaningless note.

The major studied the comlink's readout, then shut it off. "That's twice as strong as before. Jammer must be completely online now." He hesitated, then handed it to an attendant. "Keep trying to reach him anyway."

There was a brooding silence, and Kaevee reminded herself to breathe.

"They can't have many bodies left to throw at us inside MSG Control," hazarded one of the officers. "We could send twenty, maybe thirty of our men—"

"And leave our means of escape even more vulnerable than it already is," fumed the major, "when it's not even _ready_ yet. What if the enemy has more troops regrouping elsewhere? Or Sith?"

He regarded Kaevee, who didn't wait for the question. As she stretched out again, she spoke faintly. "There's still some out there… Farther in, probably in the control area… A group."

"How many?"

She winced, trying to zero in on the presences she felt. There were definitely fewer than she had sensed before, but… "I'm sorry, I can't tell."

"But they're staying put?"

Coming out of it, she nodded.

The major stared down at the control panel, his jaw set. "We're not equipped to finish this battle," he said at last, "and despite Rand's intel, we've lost too many lives already." He swept them all with his gaze. "Put together a squad and send them to collect the survivors. Once they're all back here, if we can get that damn transport ready, we're pulling out. Kaevee, you're going with them. They may need your help if those Sith decide to chase after them."

Kaevee was somewhat taken aback, but could only say, "Yes, sir," as she followed the major out of the control room.

They were met by the same soldier-mechanic-messenger from before. "She'll be ready to fly before too long, sir. Soon as we get the power coupling—"

Hawkins cut him off. "That's good. Get Terrick out here right now. We need him."

* * *

With his rifle at the ready, Atton watched as the blast door hissed its way open. Beyond lay a narrow, round-walled hallway of dark steel. If the door was MSG Control's teeth, then that hallway was its throat.

* * *

As she jogged along at the rear of the squad of soldiers, Kaevee repeatedly checked their progress on the little automap that the major had given her. They only needed to take a few turns to get to the corridor where Atton and the other survivors were supposed to meet them. But even though the facility seemed just as deserted as before, she was afraid of getting lost if something bad were to happen that separated her from the others.

_Well, that's a surprise—mission failed,_ Cole had said as they left the hangar. Kaevee couldn't help but suspect that the spacer was relieved at the news that Hawkins intended to retreat. He had showed some reluctance to leave off helping with the transport, which was odd, considering he'd also shown reluctance to _start_ helping with it. Setting aside her annoyance with having him to watch her, Kaevee found herself doubting, once again, that he really had a future aboard the _Ebon Hawk_.

They met no resistance except for two locked doors which were quickly bypassed. The halls they passed through progressively showed more and more signs of battle—blasted corpses, wrecked droids, drifting wisps of smoke.

Soon enough they reached corridor D-27. At first sight of the survivors, an inexplicable sense of alarm lanced its way into Kaevee's mind. Yet she forgot about it when they drew near and she got a good look at the wounded. Most of them were being carried, a few on semi-flat durasteel sheets—destroyed doors, apparently—that served as makeshift stretchers. There were charred stumps where limbs should have been, or long, horrible burns that had barely missed vital organs.

Kaevee and Cole hung back as the two groups mingled. Some of the fresher soldiers went to help with those who needed carrying. One of the walking survivors had no weapon. He was missing a hand and moving his lips, but saying nothing. He turned from side to side, holding up his wounded member as though to display it. Kaevee blanched as his gaze passed over her, but his eyes were faraway, and he seemed not to notice her at all. One of his fellows was hovering close by, reassuring him, "You're okay, man, you're okay. We'll all be okay now…"

The Padawan's sense of alarm returned as soon as she took her eyes off of the wounded. Beside her, Cole was leaning one way, then another, scanning the group with a furrowed brow.

"What the hell do you _mean_, he went on ahead?!"

Their attention immediately went to the squad sergeant. His outburst was endured by one of the survivors, a blond-haired private who shrugged helplessly in response. "Said he wanted to complete the mission. I tried to talk him out of it, but he wouldn't listen."

"Atton…," Kaevee breathed as something like ice started rushing through her veins. Her eyes darted frantically from one man to the next, though she knew she wouldn't find him.

"We're trying to evacuate here!" continued the sergeant. "What's he thinking?"

"Couldn't tell you, sir," the private answered wearily. "He said to tell Major Hawkins that if we end up having to leave without him, he's fine with it."

The sergeant huffed. "I'm not sure how well the major will take that, considering the trouble the Republic went through to find this guy…"

"I wish you'd been here to tell him that, sir…"

"I'll be damned," Cole said under his breath. "I was right about him."

"All the Sith are inside there!" Kaevee blurted. "They'll kill him!"

"I'm not so sure about that," the private remarked, studying her. He motioned back up the hallway. "He fragged a good number of 'em back there…"

Memories of some of the pilot's exploits flashed through Kaevee's mind—his duel with the Sith woman on Dantooine, the firefight on Daluuj. Atton hadn't won either of those fights. However skilled or resourceful he was, he definitely had limits. "Not by himself," said the Padawan, shaking her head. "We've got to help him. Or go catch up to him, get him to come back."

The sergeant regarded her with a face made of granite. "That is _not_ an option, Jedi. We need to get these men back to the hangar right now."

She didn't fault him for saying that. They _did_ need to get the wounded to safety. But the soldiers could do that, and in any case they had to, because they followed orders.

Kaevee was not a soldier. "Then you get them back. _We're_ going to get Atton." She glanced at Cole. "Come on."

As soon as she said it, the ice running through her blood changed to electricity. She left a kind of stunned silence as she strode around the soldiers and up the hall where the survivors had come from. Several voices followed her simultaneously and drowned each other out—but then two more came clearly:

"I said, stop! STOP—"

"Just _hang on_, sergeant, she's not gonna listen to you—but she _might_ listen to me."

Kaevee stopped and whirled around, startled. Cole was right there with her, but he hadn't been following her in the way she had supposed. He kept half-raising his arms, as though debating whether or not to grab her. "Kaevee, we are _not_ doing this. We can't help him."

"We have to try. We owe it to him—"

"No we don't. What did he tell you before? No stupid, suicidal heroics. You say there's Sith in there—if he can't handle 'em, then _you're_ as good as dead."

"_He's_ the one being suicidal! We can't let him—"

Cole made a fierce, sweeping gesture with one hand. "Let him do what he wants! If somebody's really bent on getting himself killed, you can't stop him."

"Maybe I can't, but _we_ can."

"We can charge into a room full of Sith and die horribly? Frack no. Not if you promised me the _Queen of Ranroon_." He sighed, and all the intensity seemed to go out of him that moment, giving way to frank weariness. "You've lost your mind, kid."

Kaevee stared, trying to get a sense of what was behind his tone. The thought that it might be pity stoked her anger. "Then go back, if that's what you'll do," she snapped. "But _I_ have to be there—I'm a Jedi. And you're not going to stop me."

"You're right. I'm not."

It was four simple words—just four, and they weren't exactly unforeseeable—but he said them with such a sudden, palpable indifference that they felt like a slap to the face. "…_What?_"

"You're no better than Atton," Cole went on quietly, almost robotically. "I can't help you."

Kaevee faltered, bewildered that he was suddenly giving up. But she pressed on, struggling to find the words that were urgent enough. What would it take? Why wouldn't he listen? "Yes, you can!" she cried. "You _can_ help me. But we're wasting time—"

The spacer looked down at her and suddenly his expression hardened, his passion returning. "Kid, I've got _limits_. I'll help you out in a scrape. Bounty hunters, soldiers, even flying monsters—wouldn't've guessed _that_ one before today… But _Sith?_ I know what they can do—slice you up like nerf, snap your spine like a twig, rip your memories out of you and turn you into a basket case. I'm not going _near_ one of them for _anything_, sure as hell not to try and save someone who wants to die—whether it's Atton _or_ you."

Kaevee's chest tightened as it finally began to sink in and her hope left her. "But I saved _your_ life…" In her mind she went back to Daluuj, back to watching the bounty hunter's knife drift toward Cole's face, and the Force refusing her even as her desire to save him turned her spirit black.

Cole started shaking his head bitterly, almost painfully. "Don't pull that shit with me. Just get out of here—"

"After everything we've been through…"

"—and stop holding these people up. Go on, play hero! What are you _waiting_ for?"

"You _scum._ Atton needs us, and you want to let him die…" It hurt to speak—with every word it felt like she was expelling something poisonous from her throat. "…and you'd do the same to me, you— You selfish, miserable _coward!_ That's all you are, a coward!"

"YES! You're _exactly_ right!" Cole erupted, his fists shaking, and Kaevee began to see something else from the recent past. His face had warped into the same blazing, almost superhuman rage that she had seen aboard the _Sharp Turn_, when he had tried to re-board the exploding ship in pursuit of his credits. Furious as Kaevee was herself, she backed away a step, thinking for a split second that he was going to hit her.

But all he did was snarl, "I _am_ a coward, and you're a damn fool who wants to throw our lives away for _NOTHING!_ I'd rather be _alive_, but you can do what you want!" And again, just as startlingly quickly as it had flared up, the rage seemed to burn out, leaving only an ember of itself behind. His mouth twisted, forming something like the desiccated remnant of a smile. "If you're gonna go, then go… And may the Force be with you."

It had been eleven lonely years since Kaevee had last heard anyone say those words to her. Loathing Cole so deeply that she was afraid to find out what she might say or do if she wasted another moment on him, she turned and ran into the depths of Singularity Base.


	27. Valiant

Atton stepped, and the Remote hovered, out of the hallway from the security zone and into MSG Control, which they found darker than the rest of Singularity Base. There were no guards in sight, no distant footsteps or murmurs, not so much as a peep from a roachrat. But Atton knew damn well that they weren't alone. He could still sense the windbag Headmaster as plain as day, along with two other Sith—they were deeper inside, close to the very rim of the artificial crater, around which the master control consoles were spaced.

They didn't worry him that much. Neither did the ten-ish assassins, though his sense of them was imperfect. Between their power to hide themselves in the Force and his knack for finding people who were hiding, it averaged out to him just knowing that they were around somewhere.

The only thing that gave him a bad feeling was Visas. Though her presence was equally as indistinct and vague as her sidekicks', the threat she posed was anything but uncertain. Too bad things hadn't gone differently in the Ord Lonesome system, or else she would've been sucking vacuum right then… Well, at least now he had time to fix that, along with another mistake or two.

He surveyed the junction they had arrived in, casting long, careful looks down the passages to the left and right. It was actually the same passage curving along the entire length of MSG Control's outer wall in order to link each of the entrances from the security zones.

Atton looked down the corridor right ahead of him, where a distant silver-green light flickered beckoningly—on a few seconds, then off a few, then on again. In synch with the light's pattern, the floor beneath him vibrated, as though a subtle electrical charge was running through it.

_Totals are three, one. Totals are seven, seven. Play the plus-three card, totals are ten, seven…_

"It's showtime," he whispered out the corner of his mouth. "Break a leg." The Remote gave a soft beep in reply, and they parted ways.

Unlike the outer ring of the base, which was haphazard and labyrinthine, everything in MSG Control was oriented toward its center, symmetric and methodical. A series of wide corridors, such as the one Atton was progressing down, led inward from the ring linking each of the five entrances, separating blocks of dozens of rooms where scientists and operators had once been stationed. The same layout was repeated for eight levels down, like a stack of wheels atop one another, but smaller access ways for maintenance and repair extended much farther than that.

Singularity Base had been designed to be a superweapon, but it was no less a laboratory, and the rooms housed in each block had multitudinous purposes. Many were dedicated to operating gargantuan sensor systems that monitored any phenomena which could affect the Mass Shadow Generator's operation, ranging from the Malachor system's natural gravitonic anomalies to solar activity and cosmic rays, all the way down to local meteorological activity and atmospheric disturbances. Other rooms hosted sophisticated computer labs where teams of scientists had once spent hours or days running and analyzing weapon simulations. Still others were control centers for the facility's power management and distribution. To name a few.

Those years ago, when the _Loxley_ had ferried him into battle over Malachor, Atton had had no idea that there was any Republic base on the surface, let alone its purpose. None of the grunts had been told. All they'd heard was whispers that Revan had "something special" in mind for Mandalore's fleet. It felt strange to be walking those halls now, strolling alone and with full knowledge into the very center of this gigantic death trap.

_First in, last out._

Halfway down the hall, he felt something—a little twinge or twist in his sense of danger, a disturbance in the Force, a more specific bad feeling on top of the regular one, whatever one might call it—and decided to take a small detour. Fishing a sticky mine out of his backpack, he headed into a room on his right, leaving the device in the doorway as he passed through. To be safe, he thought about hyperspace routes. _The Entralla Route's a pain in the ass if you want to get to Ord Trasi. Better to start at Yaga Minor and cut over to Mygeeto…_

The subtly curved room before him stretched on for a bit. Rows of computer stations ran down its entire length on either side, their security-locked monitors glowing softly. Giant screens covered the walls, displaying cross-sections of the superweapon's subterranean machinery and setting the room awash with yellow, orange, and red light.

What interested Atton more, however, was the door across from him sliding shut with a slight hiss. He advanced into the room cautiously, his rifle up, looking for the slight ripple in the air that betrayed the work of a stealth field generator.

After a few seconds he just lost his patience and started spraying the room, sweeping his rifle from side to side. Glowing metal fragments ricocheted about, and the sparking, flaming death throes of exploding computers cast brilliant shimmers through scattering shards of glass. Screens cracked by shrapnel sputtered or went out, deepening the room's shadows. On a certain level it felt good to wreck something, but what he wanted to see was a dead body flopping about in the devastation.

The Force hissed a warning at him. Without question he spun as a vibro-knife flicked out of the shadows between two consoles on the right. He felt a jolt go through his arms as the blade embedded itself in his rifle's power cell. Glad though he was that it hadn't gone into his chest, he was also annoyed—the Force had ruined a perfectly good blaster.

He chucked the rifle at the assassin and dug out his lightsaber, calling forth its blade just in time for the mine he'd left behind him to go off with a satisfying bang, sprinkling the floor with more debris. But as the one assassin closed in with a vibroblade, he spared a glance at the mangled doorway to see a second coming to join the fight. Either the murglak had set the mine off from a distance somehow, or he had just gotten a promotion.

Atton forgot about that quandary as the first one closed in, slashing at him with double-bladed vibrosword, but he was at the top of his game. He met the whirling volley of blows with a minimalist defense, his saber deflecting each one off-course rather than going for a straight block. When the assassin slowed just a little, Atton went for a middle thrust that burned through the middle of the vibrosword's handle and left a glowing arc from his chest down to his belly.

As the man fell and died, his buddy closed half the distance. Rather than spend an extra half-second putting his saber away, Atton simply dropped it and yanked two pistols from his belt. The remaining assassin ducked under the first two shots and sidestepped the third. The next two were half-absorbed by his armor, but stopped him in his tracks. Never one for doing things halfway, Atton kept firing until the guy was laid out on his back, his body full of holes.

He holstered his guns and bent down to snatch up his lightsaber—carefully, since it had no auto-off and was still scorching its way down into the floor. "Bet you wish you had one of these."

Powering down the weapon, he finished crossing the room, emerged into the corridor beyond, and continued down the corridor toward the rhythmically crackling green light. As he went farther, the vibration in the floor and walls grew stronger, the rumbling more pronounced. It made him think of maglev cars roaring by underground. He slipped into the Force for a moment. Things were no clearer than before, but no less, either, and the minds he felt were charged with a new alertness. The racket had drawn more than its share of attention.

As usual, Atton's feelings were mixed. _That's good… I guess._

The hallway and the blocks of work stations came to an end, and MSG Control expanded into a concourse of sorts. Beyond a chasm bridged by a spider's-web of catwalks and platforms, a transparisteel window twenty meters high ran wide enough to provide an ample view of the artificial crater.

Set into its surface in clusters and rings, long antennae and other sensitive-looking instruments jutted skyward. They were taller than the Republic's tank droids, but stood like grass compared to the looming figures of the massive energy pylons. As Atton gazed up at them, it struck him at they bore some resemblance to the claw-shaped megaliths at the center of Trayus Core. Arranged in three concentric circles, they all faced inward toward the black maw in the valley's center.

Thick power lines and data cables snaked from that opening, crisscrossing and tangling like creeping vines as they linked the various protruding structures with the inner, kilometers-deep guts of the Mass Shadow Generator.

All of the pylons were inactive, folded down against the valley's floor, except for the five that made up the inner ring. Every few seconds they were wreathed in bursts of silvery green energy that threw harsh light against the clouds, as though they held lightning imprisoned within themselves, and the facility trembled.

Atton thought he saw something flying low against the flashing clouds, but he put it aside and lowered his eyes. On the other side of the chasm, a walkway ran around the window, hosting yet more computer readouts and instruments and among them he spied the master control console—well, one of them, actually.

And right between him and it, standing on one of the platforms, was a certain lanky, deathly pale, goggle-eyed Nautolan. "_Rand!_" he bellowed theatrically.

Atton waved, feigning a look of pleasant surprise. "Professor! Good to see you again! How's classes?"

"The depth of your boorishness is matched only by your stupidity," the Headmaster replied.

"Takes one to know one." Atton edged his way onto a walkway that rimmed the outer edge of the chasm and looked around. A Sith Marauder stood on either side of him, an Iktotchi and a Lethan Twi'lek.

"I hope that our Master learns from her mistakes after this day," Silbus mused, gesturing at the ceiling. "You should never have survived my training. You _would_ not have, had it not been for her shackling me. Her unreasonable demands are what led to this catastrophe."

"I can't argue with you there," Atton admitted. It was hard to say whether the Nautolan was genuinely chewing him out or just trying to stall. Knowing him, it was probably the former, but that ultimately made no difference. And even if it was the latter, two could play that game.

Atton's lightsaber flared to life, and the two Marauders drew bloodshine blades to match. He gave them each a brief glare. "Let's get this over with."

Scoffing, the Headmaster raised a hand, and a jagged arc of blue-white lightning split the air. Atton's blade caught it at the last second, but the impact was a rough one, and only his two-handed grip on the saber kept it from being forced back into his shoulder. The unstable beam spat sparks and surged almost pure white as the lightning poured into it, and at that moment he wondered if it had been a bad idea to settle for _good enough_.

The Headmaster's two stooges moved on him—the Iktotchi was lining up a chop at his legs, the Twi'lek another at his back. Unable to think of anything else to do, Atton ran backward a few steps, letting the force behind the lightning carry him. Still grounded on his blade, the bolt flashed and writhed, and the Sith Marauders skidded to a halt, wary of running into it. Gnashing his teeth in frustration, Silbus let off. His Marauders rallied, then flung themselves on Atton, and light flared as their blades crossed.

* * *

Corridor D-27 soon turned onto the main one. The automap made it easy to retrace the route taken by the survivors from Security Zone C, but even without it, Kaevee was certain she would have found her way. She only ran faster as her sense of urgency sharpened—and more than one thing sharpened it.

Aside from the need to help Atton, she was trying to outrun all thoughts of Cole—his ingratitude, his selfishness, and her own inability to move him. And the farther she went, the more corpses and wreckage she saw, and she wanted to put them behind her as well.

And she was feeling, more and more irresistibly, that she was being followed. By who or what, by an enemy, or Republic troopers, or even a penitent Cole, she couldn't tell. But each time she looked back or stretched out with the Force, there was no sign of pursuit. No company at all but the dead.

The blaster in her robe bounced heavily against her as she ran. She tried to stay alert, but each time she got her focus together, something would break it. Atton's voice seemed to rattle around inside her head in a tedious, chastising monologue. _What did I tell you, kid? Turn around! Don't be stupid! No heroics! That one Sith on Dantooine almost killed you! You're not even a Jedi, just some half-trained Padawan…_

The words kept rising up within her, and she forced them back down, over and over. It didn't matter what Atton wanted, or Cole, or Major Hawkins, or anyone else. She couldn't run away again. She had to trust the Force. She had to be brave.

She didn't feel brave when she reached the security zone.

Five long, blaster-mangled scanning aisles ran down its length toward the area before an open circular blast door. Debris carpeted the floor—shards of glass, twisted shrapnel, ruined weapons and equipment. Over the debris was a layer of bodies. Burned, bloodied, quartered, shredded by explosions, they were thick enough in the aisles that Kaevee wouldn't even be able to step between them. Gray smoke clung to the ceiling, swirling slowly.

She stared at the ruination, forcing herself to shake her head for fear that her body would freeze completely. In the Force, she felt something passing over her and into her; she took it to be a kind of echo of the panic and rage and desperation and insanity of battle. It sounded like Dantooine, but worse than Dantooine, it sounded like Malachor, sounded like the thing that she could not bear to listen to.

So many people dying so quickly, so close together—and just left there. The sight was torturing, but Kaevee continued to look even as she felt her thoughts slowing down, her heart beating weaker. She felt powerless in many ways, some of them strange ways.

_Fire_, she realized distantly. That was the answer. She needed fire, Jedi fire to take all these bodies away. They deserved the fire. It was the Jedi thing to do, she was certain… But how could she do it? Where could she possibly get enough fire, when she had no one to help her…

She flinched as though someone had stuck her with a pin, and that train of thought fell away. Atton needed her help. She needed to get through.

"Atris… can you hear me?" She wanted to scream, but it only came out as a whisper. "Atris, help. Help me now."

But she didn't wait for Atris to help; maybe the old woman had helped her already. She fixed her gaze on doorway at the other end of the room and began to move.

"I am a Jedi, the Force is with me, I am a Jedi, the Force is with me, I am a Jedi, the Force is with me…"

The terrain was uneven and impossible to traverse properly. It wasn't _supposed_ to be terrain; they were supposed to be alive. Kaevee stumbled down the aisle, bracing herself against a wall the whole way, not looking down, feeling the world spinning and hoping it wouldn't spin faster, wishing she could tell the corpses she was sorry.

Past the scanning aisle, she tripped over one person, fell across another. Not thinking, not able to think, not wanting any more horror to grapple with, she stood up and shut her eyes, willing the Force to map out the contours of the room for her. For just a few seconds a shaky, fuzzy path laid itself out in her mind's eye, and her clumsy steps carried her down it. She opened her eyes when her outstretched hand met something solid—the wall right next to the blast door.

A weak laugh of relief fell from Kaevee's mouth as she edged her way into the portal. As the Force poured strength back into her spirit, her mind began to clear again, and she had the feeling, again, that she was being followed—not watched, but followed. But it was impossible to look back. She sprinted down the dark hallway.

Just inside MSG Control, she stopped to catch her breath and get her bearings. There was a staggered, irregular interplay of light up ahead, a strange rumbling beneath her feet…

And the dark side was stronger here, she realized, because the Sith were very close. She hastily pressed herself against a nearby wall, hiding from the dazzling green light that came down the corridor. Her mind raced; she had actually made it, and now she had to find Atton.

At this point, getting him to turn back probably wasn't going to be an option. Being this far inside already, he was going to activate the weapon. Kaevee's job, then, was to help him get through the Sith to one of the master consoles…

The Padawan's courage—if it _was_ courage—wavered. She remembered again how easily she had been defeated by the Sith on Dantooine. She would've liked to believe she had grown stronger in the Force after the exercises Atton had put her through. Either way, now it would be just her and Atton against more Sith. And she had no laigreks to help.

And she had no weapons except for that stupid blaster. There had been a lot of dead Sith back in the security zone, she realized—if only she'd had the presence of mind to pick up one of their lightsabers. She couldn't use it well, but it would have made her feel better.

Her trepidation growing, she peeked around the corner. Squinting against the strange, intermittent silver-green crackle, she was able to make out several silhouettes down at the end of the hallway, before a wide-open concourse. They quickly moved out of sight, but not before she had glimpsed the colliding arcs and flashes of lightsabers, two bloodshine and one blue.

Kaevee's heart pounded, her stomach twisted, and her sense of naked dread and vulnerability intensified. But it was far too late for second-guessing, too late to consider the possibility, however remote, that she ought to have gone back to the hangar with Cole and the others. She had chosen to go and now she was _there_, and Atton needed her help. She had no choice but to trust the Force to carry her through to the end. There was no going back.

Just then there was a low mechanical whir as the door she had come through opened again, and Kaevee looked and found a second reason why there was no going back.

This reason had to do with another lightsaber that appeared with an electric _snap-hiss_, its brilliant red-white gleam reflecting off polished armor as its wielder brought it to guard. He was a bald Human, pale and hard-nosed. Taking a hand off the lightsaber, he wiped sweat from his brow and let out a harsh laugh. "A Jedi—at last!" He sounded a little winded, but there was no doubting the malice and relish in his words.

The Padawan froze, her look drifting from the Sith's blade to his hellishly-lit face, and for a brief moment there was silence. As it wore on, his gleeful leer was tinged with annoyance, as though he was impatient for a reply. "You fear me," he observed, inclining his head.

Having no scruples at all about proving his point, Kaevee bolted. Apparently the Sith hadn't expected it, and she got a few seconds' lead down the curved hallway as he indignantly shouted, "_WHAT?!_ Come back here, coward!" But in the next few seconds, the noise of heavy footfalls and the buzz of the lightsaber quickly gained on her. Close to panicking, she stopped at a random door to her right and slammed the panel. Mercifully it opened, sliding up into the ceiling, and she bounded through, finding herself in a control room of some kind.

Without thinking she spun around, grabbing the door with the Force, and its machinery squealed in complaint as she yanked it closed—a half-second too early to bring it down on the head of her pursuer. She held the door in its place, but a second later the Sith's lightsaber pierced the durasteel and deftly sliced a molten rectangle through it. The Padawan let the door go and scampered back as he kicked it in with a crash.

"Really, this is pathetic," he sneered as he came through the opening. He still held his saber to guard, but it was clearly more relaxed than before. "You don't even _have_ a lightsaber, do you? Why else would a Jedi run from battle?"

Backing away down the length of the room, Kaevee raised both hands and threw a telekinetic push at him, but the Sith brought up his forearms as though blocking a punch; it rocked him and he grunted as Force collided with Force, but he quickly regained his balance. "You'll have to do better than _that_," he goaded.

The Padawan pushed again, as hard as she could, but this time her opponent swept his hand and the blast was deflected away completely. Beside him, one of the control panels which lined the walls crumpled inward, vomiting sparks and fragments of glass and plasteel. The Sith turned away, shielding his face from the debris.

He came at her again, this time at a brisk walk. Spying a plasteel drum to the side, Kaevee latched onto it with her mind and flung it. The Sith crouched—though even if he hadn't, it would have sailed a foot or two over his head—and it crashed on the other side of the room. Sucking in a breath, the Padawan tried to concentrate better, tried to remember what Atton had taught her. One at a time, more containers and chairs flew through the room, but their target was more agile than he looked. The Sith ducked, sidestepped, or hopped over them, often contemptuously slashing them to pieces as they blurred past.

Kaevee felt her grasp on the Force slipping, but it wasn't her power that was lacking; desperation chipped away at her focus even as she continued to lash out. Illuminators, gauges, comlink chargers, and levers sparked as she ripped them out of their fixtures. The Sith continued to dodge the missiles, occasionally slapping one away with the Force. He flinched as a few bounced off his chest armor, but they only seemed to annoy him. Finally Kaevee grasped at a large metal cabinet that almost reached to the ceiling, trying to throw it; but it only wobbled and fell over with a _boom_ as the Sith strolled past, several feet out of range. At a loss, the Padawan hesitated, and at that moment he broke into a run, lightsaber raised.

A frantic scream tore from Kaevee's throat as she pushed one more time; even in mid-charge the Sith absorbed the brunt of the energy, but it disrupted his precision enough that his diagonal chop sliced the air just over her head and right shoulder instead of splitting her from shoulder to hip. While he was still on the downswing, she turned to run again.

The Force warned her of an obstacle before her conscious mind could process it; it was a square holotable half as tall as herself. With no time for grace or calculation, she dived onto its surface, scrambling across on all fours. Again the Sith narrowly missed, his blade slicing deep into the machine just behind her. Its innards sizzled and gouted smoke, and the man snarled in frustration.

Kaevee was almost across the holotable when she was hit from behind by a wave of telekinetic force that knocked her over the edge and spilled her onto the floor. Before she could regain her breath, the Sith hurdled the obstruction and landed right next to her. As he readied to swing again, his mad yellow eyes blazed with contempt.

Then they widened in alarm and he looked back the way he had come, responding to some arcane warning—or perhaps being drawn by a strange sound, a rapid-fire sort of metallic clacking. With just as much desperation as Kaevee had flung herself across the holotable, the Sith flung himself away from it. He was chased by a shuddering molten cloud that erupted from over its edge like a burst from a flamethrower.

Suddenly blinded, Kaevee cried out and hid her face in her robe to shield it from the searing heat. As it withdrew she rolled over and crawled blindly, away from the familiar clacking and the dopplering hum of the lightsaber. Reaching a wall console, she pulled herself to her feet and turned around, her vision starting to clear.

The Sith was stumbling about near the opposite wall, one hand rubbing his eyes, the other waving his lightsaber before him, trying to keep his new assailant at bay. The laigrek darted in under a horizontal swing and then leaped at him, thrusting one of its scythe-like mandibles at his thigh; the armor there seemed to stop it, but the man still roared. He strafed to the side, swinging again, and the laigrek let out a buzzing shriek as red plasma raked along its side. It fell writhing to the ground and the Sith hopped awkwardly away, checking his leg.

The same loss Kaevee had felt back in the Y-junction lanced through her again, but anger and fresh resolve quickly swallowed it up. Reaching out with the Force, she tried to yank the Sith's lightsaber out of his hand. The man wobbled as his weapon jerked forward, but he maintained his grip on it. Then he looked at Kaevee as though suddenly remembering she was there, and his face, now a sort of blistery red, darkened further. He made a savage throwing motion with his hand, and Kaevee leaped aside as the laigrek soared across the room and smashed against the console where she had just been standing.

Staying close to the wall, the Padawan retreated again, and now she did feel her power waning. After blindly turning a corner, she found herself running down a narrow, short corridor—thirty feet long at most—toward a lone door at its end. She caught herself against it, wheezing and gasping, and slapped the panel beside it.

Nothing happened. Noticing that the door had a viewport, she looked inside and found what looked like a closet, holding a wall of yet more computers—except these computers looked different from the others she had seen. More importantly, there was nothing else inside the room; it was a dead end.

She turned and threw one last wave of Force power down the hall just as her pursuer jogged into view. The corridor mostly just shuddered, but a few small devices burst from the walls and flew at the Sith, who stopped and flinched back. Hissing through gritted teeth, he righted himself, and Kaevee saw blood begin to flow from a tear that crossed his cheek and almost reached back to his neck. But he didn't even bring a hand to the wound, and now fire seemed to be in his eyes.

As he brought his sword arm back, the Force rushed upon Kaevee. It was not power from within, which she had all but exhausted, but wordless intuition from without. In the critical split second of choice, she surrendered to it and threw herself flat against the floor as the lightsaber came spinning down the corridor at her, haloed by a tempest of gold and scarlet sparks as it cut into the walls.

Bloodshine light flashed over Kaevee's head. Behind her, glass shattered and electricity writhed and crackled. Still under the Force's guidance, she pushed herself up to her knees. The Sith stood with one arm outstretched, one side of his face glistening in the haphazard light that splashed its way up the corridor. They both froze for a brief moment, staring at each other dumbfoundedly.

As the moment ended, Kaevee noticed that she had one hand in her pocket, grasping something tight. Feverishly hoping that the Force would be with her for just another second or two, she drew the blaster pistol and brought it up. The Sith's eyes bulged and his fingers opened wider, calling his weapon back to him, but something had gone wrong.

Kaevee's finger twitched, then twitched again. The first bolt blinked into the man's throat and blew out the back of his neck. By the time the second one went through his head, he was already falling.

For some minutes the Padawan remained where she was, catching her breath and marveling at her survival. Then she put a hand against the wall and stood up, careful not to touch any scorch marks, and went back to the door. The lightsaber was nowhere to be seen, but there was a wide, gold-glowing slit in one of the computers. It must have slashed through and embedded itself somewhere inside. Electrical discharges belched from the wound, and Kaevee smelled burning metal. She decided against trying to retrieve the lightsaber.

As she shambled back to the control room, she looked first at the Sith she had killed, then at the blaster still in her hand. _Maybe this is what Atton was talking about,_ she realized.

A muffled, warbling croak brought her out of her thoughts. Putting the blaster away, she followed the sound back down the wall to the laigrek.

It was a pitiable sight. The Sith's blade had severed all three of the creature's left legs and left an awful burn wound down that side of its belly. Its impact against the console had partly caved in the right side of its head and reduced the compound eye there to an oozing, pulpy mess. Amazingly, it seemed that it had tried to rejoin the fight, dragging itself on its remaining front leg and leaving behind streaks of its ochre blood in a trail several meters long. It tried to stand up as its master drew near, but the motion only ground its wounds against the floor, and it collapsed with a whimper.

Kaevee stood hunched over the animal, watching and trembling as it wriggled the charred little stumps that remained of its lost legs. The thought of putting it out of its misery crossed her mind. It certainly couldn't help her any more, and there was nothing else she could do to ease its suffering. But the time she had spent living alone on Dantooine went through her mind as well. For all those years, the laigreks had been with her; these simple, ignorant, unquestioning animals had waited, watched, killed, and died to protect her, to protect what little remained of the Jedi.

Then, for reasons she could not fathom, this single, unremarkable specimen had followed her from home—and, after crossing the galaxy in her company, it had now given its life for hers. She knew that the power of the Force had compelled its actions; it had not been the laigrek's own choice to be elevated above the mere demands of its nature, to be given a higher purpose. Yet even knowing that, even seeing its terrible pain, she simply could not bring herself to kill it.

And every moment she spent there hesitating was a moment she was leaving Atton to fend for himself against the Sith.

Holding her breath, she reached out through the Force and took hold of the laigrek's mind, trying to pour her gratitude in and wishing, willing, hoping that the creature would somehow be able to understand. She gave a little gasp and shook as something poured back into her which she took to be its sense of pain; perhaps, then, she had been able to ease its suffering a little.

Guilty that she had taken even those few seconds, the Padawan drew back, steeled herself, and ran back out to the main corridor.

* * *

Silbus had long considered lightsaber combat to be brutish and conceited, not a fit activity for a true Lord of the Sith, and so he customarily left it to others. Still, most of the times that he had occasion to observe it, he was able to take some enjoyment in doing so, much as a common being from the Outer Rim would enjoy watching a kreetle-fight.

This was not one of those times.

Even after making concessions for fighters in general, Atton Rand was a ridiculous creature to behold. As Zanjo and Yaiban pressed their assault, he scurried along the walkways like a womp rat, retreating one way, then twisting between them or dashing around them and falling back the other way. He leaped over the railing and onto a catwalk a level or two down; the Sith Marauders gave chase, their blades clashed a few times, and then he led them back up. He sometimes threw grenades or other explosives as he went about, telekinetically guiding them to structural weak points that sent sections of platform tumbling down to the abyss, nearly taking one or both of his opponents with them.

These were only a few examples of the absurd stunts that he indulged in. At least Zanjo and Yaiban had had the decency to practice and hone their skills; though their choice of weapon was inferior, Silbus respected the care they had put into their training. The Iktotchi was the more aggressive one, falling on Rand with blistering volleys of powerful blows, giving him as little breathing room as possible. The Twi'lek was more careful, more measured, calculating. He favored Niman, the form of balanced defense and offense. Coincidentally, this seemed to be the same style Rand was using—when he bothered to actually engage in the duel at all.

It was only comical for the first moment or two; there was no real entertainment to be had. The Headmaster tried a few more times to end it quickly with Force lightning, but each time he did so, the boor caught it on his amateur's blade and strafed behind one of the Marauders, forcing Silbus to cut the current again.

He agonized over whether it would be best to simply kill all three of them at once. Rand might be able to use his two adversaries as shields, but it wouldn't be too difficult to hurl lightning into their backs, then channel it _through_ them to their real target and end these shenanigans.

But no. It would be inexcusable for Silbus to deliberately dispose of two of his more capable minions, particularly since he now possessed considerably fewer than he had the previous day. And besides, Rand's moments were numbered; Zanjo and Yaiban had him clearly outclassed, and he couldn't possibly reach his precious computer terminal while trying to fight them off. And as for his Jedi allies…

Leaving his body alone for a moment, Silbus delved into the Force. The far-off light he had sensed before was where it had been, no closer, no farther. The other, littler one, was almost startlingly close—inside MSG Control, it seemed. But just as close there was Gorbus, exuding ferocious anger tinged with the thrill of pursuit. So much for the Jedi.

There were the remaining assassins, who still prowled about near the exits spread across the inner ring of the base, wary of any trickery or infiltration, though it now seemed such vigilance was unwarranted. But one other presence showed a particular urgency. That was Marr, rushing to join the duel—coming from the opposite side of MSG Control. She'd thought that Rand would not be stupid enough to come in on the end where the Headmaster and his Marauders were waiting.

Silbus chuckled aloud as he took up his physical senses again. Apparently the Miraluka's much-vaunted Force sight had once again shown its imprecision. The duel might well be finished by the time she arrived.

Speaking of which, the spectacle had moved out of the Headmaster's sight. Following the scintillating sounds of the clashing weapons, he strolled left to the railing of the platform on which he stood. They were across from him and some twenty feet below, the next level down. Rand was pinioned between the two Sith Marauders, whirling back and forth madly as he deflected and parried, their blades slicing sections out of the nearby railing.

Smirking down at the scene, the Headmaster reached into the Force again, more subtly than before, seeing if he could find some fissure in Rand's thoughts and send a spike of phantom pain into it. His probing met only a solid wall—it was pazaak. Though surprised for a brief moment, Silbus' mind soon went back to Rand's training. The Human had not long been able to hide the uncanny discipline that he used to shield his inner thoughts and intentions. The only thing that confused Silbus was the notion that the depths of Rand's mind really contained anything worth hiding or, by extension, worth uncovering.

Things soon took an alarming turn.

Zanjo lunged yet again, putting all of his strength into a power blow that would have taken off Rand's head and shoulders. Knowing he couldn't block it head-on, the Human opted to dodge in a positively ridiculous manner, leaning backward so far that he came close to falling, and the red blade missed his forehead by inches. Before righting himself, he blindly and awkwardly swung his sword arm back over his shoulder, flicking his own lightsaber at Yaiban's face.

The Twi'lek howled and recoiled, his legs nearly giving out beneath him. The very end of the unstable blade had only barely nicked one of his brain-tails, but those were an exceptionally sensitive part of Twi'lek anatomy and certainly a liability in close combat situations. _One more reason Yaiban shouldn't have been a Marauder_, Silbus thought with a frown.

Rand regained his balance surprisingly quickly after his contortionist gambit. Having more room to maneuver, he retreated a few steps, dodging another sweeping slash from Zanjo, and made an upward motion with his hand.

Still rapt in dismay over how clumsy the Twi'lek had been, Silbus took slightly longer than he should have to comprehend the Force's warning of the small metal sphere which was now arcing up toward him. With no time left to alter its trajectory, he willed the Force to shield him and fell back.

Muffled though it was, the sonic grenade's detonation sent him sprawling across the platform and into the railing on the other side. A pulsing, mind-flaying ringing sound subjected his skull to a veritable cataclysm, passing back and forth from one eardrum to the other, as though it was eager to shred both sides of his cranium but unable to decide which one should go first. A sensation comparable to fire spilled down his olfactory tentacles, which seemingly tried to leap from his head.

A miserable moment later, the Headmaster grasped the railing and climbed back to his feet. The agony of a hundred bones vied for his attention, but he wasn't certain if any were quite broken—he wasn't sure he ever _had_ broken a bone before. He writhed and gnashed his teeth, letting the dark side feed on his many pains.

A Force-leap carried Rand onto the platform a stone's throw away, between Silbus and the master control console. A second after landing, he was moving again, responding to a dark shape that was sailing in a greater arc over his head. Blue fire flashed. The dark shape parted in two, and Silbus observed as a pair of legs and the lower half of a torso fell on the guard rail, tumbling over the edge as the rest of Zanjo flopped to the catwalk nearby.

The Headmaster's spirit quaked with fury, and he lashed out; Rand turned toward him, bringing his defenses to bear, but the surge of dark power passed by him and went to the master console up by the viewport. Silbus clenched his bony hand into a fist, and the machine buckled and collapsed in on itself amidst a shrill cacophony and a brief rain of sparks.

As Rand looked at the wreckage, then back at the Headmaster, his mask of smug confidence was finally swept away by a grimace of outrage.

Though his legs were still somewhat shaky, Silbus stepped away from the railing. "To have fought so hard, and all for nothing!" he crowed, barely hearing himself over the torturous echo from the sonic grenade. For good measure, he raised his fist in a sufficiently imperious gesture of triumph. "You fool! Your animal strength and crude technology cannot compare with the power of the dark side!"

The boor said nothing and began to reassemble his mask. Staring blankly, he passed his saber from one hand to the other and twirled it a few times, as though warming himself up for something. The moment dragged on, and Silbus found himself wondering exactly why in Chaos Yaiban had not followed his adversary and continued the duel. Was the weakling in too much pain even to _attempt_ the jump?

Before Silbus could call to the Twi'lek, a soundless warning came to him as Rand raised one of his hands, a blaster pistol appearing in it as if by magic. The Headmaster telekinetically grasped the weapon at the last available nanosecond before a glaring red pulse emerged from it; its aim jinxed, the bolt went past Silbus' shoulder, and in the next instant he broke the pistol's barrel.

On account of Rand's crudeness, Silbus thought that another insult was in order. But then there was a thickening in the darkness of the Force between them, and the Human charged him with a speed and rage as palpable as that of any Sith Marauder.

The Headmaster's hand shot to his belt. Then his eyes did the same, and he gasped as he finally deciphered the riddle that had so tormented him back in the command center. He _had_ forgotten something: a little-used but nevertheless _occasionally_ useful tool which he had last seen on the greel wood desk in his private library back in the academy, namely his _lightsaber_.

In a silent shriek of desperation, he drew all of the power that he could possibly muster. The Force thundered into him until its sheer concentration momentarily swept away all crude material sensation and even seemed almost to destroy his mind; conscious thought and decision would prove far too slow to save his life when the Human was only strides away.

The Force found Zanjo's fallen lightsaber, snatched it into the air, and zipped the weapon over Rand's shoulder; the Force brought Silbus' hands up to catch it. The ecstasy stretched on for perhaps a full second, then flung him back into his body just as his adversary closed in.

As Rand fell on him with savage speed and power, it was plain to the Nautolan that there was no hope of recalling the techniques of swordplay that he had forgotten a decade ago. He relied on the Force alone to guide his blade, simply _willing_ himself to survive with petrified determination. His red blade met the Human's stroke for stroke, but new jolts of pain shot through his body with every blow he weathered, and he hemorrhaged energy in order to maintain his defense. He ran backward as fast as he dared, but Rand stayed on him, light clashing and sparking between them at a blistering pace.

Until, all of a sudden, Rand halted in his tracks. Silbus continued his retreat for several more paces and stopped, wheezing, his lightsaber wavering in the air before him. He stared, slowly taking in the altered scene before him: Rand had let off in order to trade blows with some other saber-wielder who had come at him from behind. Bloodshine and blue clashed several times, and then the newcomer flipped elegantly over the Human, landed, and began to drive him back down the walkway with a series of thrusts. Of all people, it was Marr.

Amazed at how close he had come to death, Silbus deactivated his lightsaber and managed to clip it to his belt after trying a few times. The duel left him behind, and farther down he saw Yaiban at last leaping up from the lower level to belatedly join in.

The Headmaster's breaths came and went in agonized, sickly hisses. He ran his hands over his ornate robe, smoothing it out, in the process discovering not a few singe marks that had not been there before. But as for his body, there seemed to be nothing but a few bruises, and they too would pass with time. And already the power of the Force began to flow back into him; it was strong here on Malachor, and he was very well-attuned to it besides.

After spending a few more seconds observing the now-distant duel, he decided to leave its conclusion to Marr. Clumsy though she was when it came to finding people, there was no doubt that she would put an end to her former ally soon enough.

The Nautolan began to put his thoughts back together as he shuffled along the catwalk, toward a wide hallway leading to one of the exits, which in turn led to one of the security zones. He needed someplace to rest, secure from any last-minute close calls. First he would return to the command center and retrieve Fulminius Graush's text and his datapads, and then… Trayus Core? Or should he leave Malachor altogether and immediately see about getting a head start on acquiring the academy at Thule? Then again, he would first need to make sure the Republic fleet was routed before attempting to leave the system…

He had just entered the hallway when an odd ripple in the Force stopped his thoughts and brought him to a halt. Raising his eyes, he saw a small creature rushing toward him, its arms flailing as it came to a halt just a stone's throw ahead. It was a thin, dirty little Human in a roughly-treated brown robe. A snarl of grimy hair fell over one of her widened eyes, and she brushed it away with a shaking hand.

Silbus frowned at the creature, annoyed that she had interrupted his contemplations. Still in the process of emerging from them, he muttered, "Where is Gorbus?" But then recognition shot through him, bringing him the rest of the way into the here and now, and the darkness inside him coiled.


	28. Singularity

At first the girl seemed to be paralyzed, as well she ought to have been in the presence of a lord such as Thoriel Silbus. Her subsequent demonstration that she was not proved as startling as it was potentially fatal. Without preamble she gestured at him, and there was a twist of energy as some previously innocuous segment of machinery—Silbus had no idea what it was—wrenched itself loose from a nearby wall and came barreling at his head.

Somewhat disturbed, he held up a hand and caught it with his will just before it would have smashed his head like a pulp melon. After his brief duel with Atton Rand, he was a bit concerned about overexerting himself too quickly, so he unpretentiously floated the debris a few feet to the side and dropped it with a crash. Flexing his fingers, he turned back to the girl—the Jedi, he realized—except that she was nowhere in sight. However, one of the doors on the right wall of the corridor was open.

An aggravated growl scraped its way up his throat. "Are you really going to force me to chase you down, you pusillanimous pest?!" he demanded as he made for the opening. He was given pause, though, by a series of laser bolts that flashed out from it when he was less than a meter away. He waited and watched as they savaged the opposite wall, his outrage quickly mounting to the heights of amazement. Was the Jedi not alone? Had she roped some hapless Republic soldier into accompanying her? And was the Headmaster of Trayus Academy now being subjected to the indignity of being shot at—_again?_

There was a pause, then two more blasts, one scorching the side of the doorframe itself. Silbus noticed his hand drifting toward the lightsaber at his waist, and he restrained it with a sneer. At the dark side's signal he marched around the corner, both arms outstretched, and a Force storm ripped into the room beyond. Display screens and light fixtures exploded, power cables melted, chairs and cabinets were overturned, and fire belched from ruined computers and other machinery as wrathful lightning vented itself on everything in sight.

And the Jedi and her apparent accomplice were both gone; they had fled through a door on the other end of the wrecked control room. Flapping his cape from side to side before him in an attempt to dispel the smoke, Silbus gave chase. As he crossed the room, there was a brief moment of weakness in which he bemoaned his lot in life; at times like these it seemed to be little more than a long series of humiliations and degradations.

The dark side did not fail him, notwithstanding his heightened fatigue after the lightning burst. As he emerged into another hallway much like the last, he instantly perceived where his quarry was and sent a wave of power down the hall. As the Jedi girl reeled back, the Headmaster sensed a weapon in her hand and tore it away with a thought. As he levitated it over to himself, it turned out that the Jedi had no accomplice with her after all; _she_ was the one who had shot at him. He clenched his fist, and the blaster pistol crumpled like a sheet of flimsi and fell to the floor. _How far the Jedi have fallen,_ he thought scornfully. _And here I thought_ lightsabers _were for boors._

The girl backed away, moving into the inner concourse of MSG Control and launching Force blows back down the corridor. Striding in pursuit, Silbus wrapped himself in the dark side and let her feeble attacks burst against him; the walls on either side shuddered slightly and his cloak billowed behind him, but he went on effortlessly. In the meantime, he extended his perception toward the Jedi herself, searching and probing. The Human's mind was pliant and easy to penetrate, her consciousness buffeted by a whirlwind of untapped, uncontrolled emotions and desperations. Despite himself, Silbus was surprised by her vulnerability; even Padawans were supposed to have achieved some rudimentary state of mental discipline. He could sense, however, that there was something out of the ordinary going on with her…

Setting that aside for the moment, he stabbed at the Jedi's mind as he had tried to do with Rand before. The pain slid its way in with no resistance, and she fell to her knees with a shriek.

She slowly looked up as Silbus drew near, her eyes glassy and unfocused. Then a spark of cunning flickered through them and she reached with the Force; but Silbus had seen her intention even as it formed in her thoughts and countered. The lightsaber stayed on his belt, and a Force wave flipped the girl out onto the catwalk behind her, where she landed harshly on her back.

With the histrionics apparently concluded at last, the Headmaster went and stood over her. Elsewhere on another platform, Rand was continuing his pointless fight with Marr… and where was Yaiban? Hiding?

No matter; Silbus gave them only a glance. They were too far away to interrupt.

* * *

Nothing ruined a murderous rage—or the Force power it could generate—like having your attack foiled by a blind woman. Even as Atton fell back, parrying and counter-slashing, he occasionally spared a brief look over Visas' shoulder at the Nautolan, who fixed his ridiculous robe and toddled off with hardly a scratch on him. It had been years since the last time Atton had felt so cheated. But he could save that frustration, recycle and refine it into anger that he could use.

He slapped Visas' blade aside and kicked her just below the knee. It didn't land as hard as he'd have liked, but she still grunted and slowed down a bit, giving him some breathing room. His Force sense warned him of someone coming up behind him—the Twi'lek. That guy wouldn't be much of a problem.

As he prepared himself, Atton glanced past the Miraluka again, looking for Silbus. Then he glanced past _Silbus_ and found something to really piss him off, though pissing him off wasn't the _exact_ same thing as making him angry.

It was Kaevee. By herself. She had made it all the way here, through the entire base, and was alive for now. However, given that she was apparently about to be squaring off with a Sith Lord, "for now" didn't look like it was going to be a very long period of time.

Disbelief relaxed Atton's jaw, and then resentment clenched it tight. _You poor, dumb kid,_ he thought. _You damn stupid deluded little _schutta,_ what are you _doing_ here?_

Then Visas and the Twi'lek both moved, trying to hem him in, and plasma met plasma. He played momong in the middle for a bit, sidestepping and spinning back and forth to keep them at bay. The Miraluka's moves were potent and unpredictable, alternating between the pretentious jabs and light slashes of Makashi and more conventional, powerful attacks. Atton gave slightly less attention to fending off the Twi'lek, who was a bit slower and, like Atton himself, solidly a Niman stylist.

Kaevee and Silbus disappeared into one of the control room blocks, but lingered in the back of Atton's mind, which proved helpful. Even as he juggled the whirling lightsabers around him, he partway retreated into his own mind, letting instinct and precognition take over the fight, stoking the emotional embers that could ignite his rage again.

There was no shortage of things to use as fuel. For instance, the narrow escape of the windbag Headmaster, and Meetra's lapdog saving him at the last second… But Kaevee's brief appearance turned out to be even more aggravating. Just taken on her own, there were a lot of things about the girl that Atton found easy to hate. Now, though, he could also hate what Silbus was about to do to her—and what the Jedi had done to her so many years before they had ever met.

There was an itch of distraction somewhere in that thought process as well. What was it, worry? Concern? _No, not good enough,_ he decided, setting it aside._ What I need is hate._

He feinted at the Twi'lek's left side, then slid past him on his right, putting both Sith in front of him. They stayed on him, attacking together, but the narrowness of the catwalk limited their fields of attack. The Twi'lek in particular seemed afraid of getting in his new partner's way and tried to keep a little buffer zone between them. As he hacked away at Atton's defenses, his angry red blade repeatedly went through the railing beside him, spattering his black outfit with sparks and sending pieces tumbling down into the concourse.

Atton gave ground for a little while, then hopped backward with a sudden burst of speed, letting the Force carry him a couple extra meters out of reach. As the two Sith started to catch up, he fell into a classic ready stance: blade up to parry, dominant foot back. Snarling fiercely for good measure—at least, _he_ thought it looked fierce—he crouched slightly, gathering energy for a split second.

His stance was the basic guard of Ataru, the acrobat's form, of which a favorite move was to flip over an opponent and slash at them from above. Recognizing it immediately, the Twi'lek interrupted his own assault, winding up for a counter-slash designed to bisect Atton while he sailed overhead—copycat. Atton, however, was not an Ataru stylist at all, despite the fact that he knew how to Force-jump. So as the Twi'lek's guard drifted just a little too high, Atton called on the Force again, but instead of springing up he sprang _forward_ at a physics-taunting speed, thrusting his saber straight ahead of him. Its unstable blade bit deep, leaving a thick, burning line from one lung to the other.

Atton didn't have time to pull it out before he had a feeling that he should duck. As he took the feeling on good faith, Visas' spinning slash, meant for his back, hummed overhead. It didn't spare her already-doomed comrade, however, blazing through lightsaber hilt, lekku, and shoulders in what was not exactly the cleanest mercy-kill Atton had ever seen. The pieces fell, and as he caught the Miraluka's next blow in a lock, he smelled freshly-burned meat. His lips parted in a bloodthirsty grin as he felt the high coming back, the pure, simplifying red haze over everything, and he gave himself over to the fight completely.

* * *

Kaevee lay splayed on the catwalk, gazing at the scaffolded ceiling of the facility and trying to make it stop spinning. She felt distant from herself, every feeling and faculty numbed by the variety of pains racking her body. She waited on the Force, but it didn't seem close to her, and the remote, elusive light of Atris' presence had grown even more ethereal. Perhaps it was only a mental afterimage of the old woman's presence. Either way, it seemed Kaevee was very much on her own now.

The Nautolan Sith Lord came into her shifting view and gazed odiously down at her as though she was something filthy he had unexpectedly stepped in. Occasionally a spasm passed over his face or through his head-tentacles, like some hidden pain was irritating him. He cleared his throat before he spoke. "I doubt you can comprehend the trouble you and your scheming Republic friends have caused me. I've lost many colleagues and many more students—students I've spent years teaching."

Kaevee slightly lifted her head. Though the motion set off firecrackers behind her watering eyes, she wanted to look at him, and for him to know how much she hated him at that moment. It brought her a drop of happiness to imagine he had been hurt somehow; it was only unfortunate that _any_ of the Sith had escaped their academy.

He went on musingly. "On the plus side, my classes now have some open slots. Perhaps you would be interested in…" He trailed off, shaking his head. "Ah, but I'm getting ahead of myself. Where is your friend, the other Jedi? I know there _is_ another—someone far more powerful than you…"

The Padawan stirred, bones aching and muscles burning. A memory from Daluuj echoed through her thoughts: _No matter what happens, don't tell them _anything. _You got that?_ Atris was certainly too far away for anyone to hurt her, but whether or not Kaevee had any information that the Sith could actually use, she felt more was at stake here—principles.

And her life.

_Get away,_ she thought. She had to get away.

Stifling a pained sob, she rolled herself over. Facing the other way, her eyes were drawn out the huge window down at the end of the concourse, across a perverse, nightmarish technological parody of a forested valley—nothing but steel in measured angles, straight lines, and precisely-forged shapes and proportions. And somehow, looking at the silver-green energy that flared around those giant metal teeth was almost nauseating; it didn't belong. It shouldn't have _been_.

Looking skyward, Kaevee spied a drexl here and there circling the valley. If she could manage to reach one of them with the Force… But no, she had tried already, back at the landing zone. Someone else had bound them—perhaps the Sith Lord right behind her.

"This does not need to be difficult, little Jedi. I am _trying_ to be patient with you." The Nautolan's voice was gently stern, like Master Zhar's had been whenever he'd had to chastise some stubborn youngling, and the similarity was terrifying.

As Kaevee started to crawl, the Sith Lord appeared in the corner of her eye, one hand raised. "Oh, very well," he complained. "I should have known; I have to do _everything_ myself."

The Padawan stopped as a very deep shadow, one that her eyes couldn't see, fell over her. She felt something in the back of her head—it was not really pain, not actual physical pressure, but somehow it was still as acute and palpable as a metal hook digging into her skull. Her back arched, her fingernails scraped against the catwalk, and her flesh crawled. Her thoughts went back to the day of her arrival at Belsavis, when she had watched in excitement as the frozen planet grew in the _Ebon Hawk_'s viewport.

There was a split second in which she wondered why in the galaxy she had started thinking about that; given her circumstances, it was so inappropriate as to be alienating. But the memory continued to play out in her mind's eye, and her stomach turned as she realized that the Sith Lord was somehow _in her head_, making her think about it. He was looking for the "other Jedi," looking for Atris.

The memory accelerated, and soon it was of Kaevee's descent through the abandoned monastery with Atton and the laigrek, toward the chamber with the cistern—and Kaevee's intuition told her that when the memory reached Atris herself, the Sith Lord would then discover her.

Her entire being revolted. _No matter what happens, don't give them _anything. She couldn't just let him take what he wanted. She had to be brave this time and _do_ something…

She doubted that attacking the Sith Lord directly again would do any good. At a loss as to her other options, she instead tried to will the memory away by conjuring up something else to put in its stead; she imagined the Janta plains back on Dantooine, thought of the tall grass rustling as a breeze swept over it and kath hounds prowled within. But the plains wavered and swam like a heat mirage, and her mind split between the two images, oscillating between them as her will warred with the intruder's.

The shadow around Kaevee deepened toward pitch. The imaginary hook went deeper into her head and then started to _yank_, harder and harder, and with each yank she felt herself being pulled further and further away from the world until the universe itself was somehow turned inside out. Her body now seemed to be a vaporous, accessory thing, hardly even a part of her at all except for the dulled pain that still reached her from her limbs and head; now it was thought that was solid, real, and immediate.

Kaevee told her body to move, to leap to its feet and run; it only sank flat against the catwalk, and even this barely registered to her. There was no way to concentrate in this nightmarish state of being, and her diversionary thought of Dantooine crumbled in the Sith Lord's grip like a dried leaf. As the episode of Belsavis continued, Kaevee panicked and panicked, scarcely able to feel her own heart pounding, and all the while there was the Nautolan's presence somewhere in her, following her hijacked train of thought toward its end…

Not thinking, not really able to think while enveloped in the shadow, Kaevee's fear ignited to an almost preternatural fury, and she tried to fight back—but in this inverted, sundered state, she could not gather whatever was left of her kinetic power to break his limbs with a Force blow, as she so desperately wanted to. Nothing in the material world still lay within her reach, and as her soul thrashed and writhed, all she had was her other memories, the other things in her mind, and she seized on them as though they could be used to form a barrier between the Nautolan and herself, or as psychic missiles to strike him with.

Time seemed to explode or to collapse in on itself; the images shot past their mind's eyes like the inscrutable ripples of a hyperspace tunnel, yet at the same time there was a searing, painstaking clarity to them, whether the memories were things Kaevee recalled often, or buried so deep that she hadn't even realized she'd forgotten them. She didn't select them; once she had made the decision to fight back, they simply came tumbling out.

_She saw Shen burning._

_She was sitting in the library in the Enclave on Dantooine, buoyed up by Emon's expectant gaze, and she was saying, "There is no passion; there is serenity…"_

_A frigid, blinding-cold wind buffeted her away from the door, and her laigrek squawked in outrage._

"_I am not scared," she protested as a brith circled somewhere high overhead._

_She followed Atton down and down and down, toward the bottom of the hollow hill._

_There was no sound in the room except for the otherworldly song of the lightsaber—_her_ lightsaber, at last—as she slowly, experimentally weaved it through the air, mesmerized by its emerald blade._

"—_DON'T HAVE _ANYTHING_, THANKS TO _YOU PEOPLE!_" Cole screamed at her. "Now GET THE HELL OFF ME!"_

_At the center of the room stood a waist-high cistern filled nearly to the brim with what could have been ice or water; it was too still to tell which…_

"—_right to listen to the Council, Kaevee, and to your Master," Bastila said. "We have to trust the Force more than ever, in times as dark as these—"_

The Nautolan's mental brute force was undeterred, shunting the would-be obstacles aside with more and more disdain each time. If Kaevee had felt any tenuous sense of control, it was gone now; she had triggered an avalanche and it was burying her, and lightyears away she distantly felt her throat burning itself raw with screaming.

"_Thanks, Atris," Atton called up the steps. "I found her."_

Kaevee fell across the universe in an instant and landed back in her body, drenched in sweat that felt like it had frozen on her. Brittle-feeling twines of hair fell over her eyes as she peeled her face away from the floor, which seemed to be rumbling louder, harder than it had before.

"That was much more than I needed to know," the Sith Lord muttered drily as he hovered somewhere nearby. "But one of your Council survived—and it was the librarian! Very interesting. Perhaps the two of us will meet some other time. That would be stimulating… though I can't say much for her as a Master, sending you into danger unattended. And on Malachor, of all places, when this planet has already devoured so many Jedi…"

Surprising herself that she was able to move at all, Kaevee propped herself up on an elbow, clawed the hair away from her eyes, and peered up at the alien. He was gesturing absently as he rambled, his black eyes hard to read but seemingly fixed on the floor beside his captive, as though he was speaking to himself as much as to her. Kaevee was almost beneath his notice; she hadn't been strong enough to stop him, she realized, just like she hadn't been strong enough to stop Mira when she'd been about to hurt Cole. That thought lingered, dense and smoldering inside, and another shadow in the Force seemed to coalesce around her—but it was a very different shadow this time. It seemed… comforting, like a parent offering an embrace. It promised there was a way out.

Kaevee hesitated before the shadow. There was a part of her that feared it and wanted to draw away; it told her that it was not of the Jedi, told her to say her mantra again, or to remember Emon's teaching, or to hold onto the enigmatic truth she had just recalled, which said that there was no passion, only serenity. But the greater part of her did not want to die, and moreover it wanted the Nautolan to die instead. In the face of that, Jedi words and Jedi ideas all seemed less real than they had before—and she could not bear to listen to them now, so soon after failing them again.

She clutched the shadow to herself and found that the Force was very much with her.

* * *

Blue-white plasma slammed against red, launching shards of light through the sterile air as Atton drove Visas back and back. He put all his weight into the blows, all the wrath he could dredge up from the ruins of the past six years, and kept them coming so fast that his former companion had hardly a millisecond free to counter-attack.

But it wasn't enough. Somehow, for some reason, it just wasn't _enough_. Even as Visas parried madly, not even trying to counter his enhanced strength directly, she seemed never to tire, never to exert herself a speck more than necessary. And all the while her face was tranquil, bored even, showing no sign of strain. Atton was stronger on Malachor, but so was she. The fun that he'd had back in the security zone and with the Headmaster's two flunkies was over, and he saw the same thing he'd been forced to see after the scuffle on Daluuj: he _had_ lost something when he'd run from Meetra. But why, exactly? Why should that have made him weaker?

Damn cosmic energy rules. How was he supposed to keep track of it all?

Their duel was fast approaching the end of the catwalk, where it joined the ring that ran along the window showing the inside of the valley. As they neared it, Atton suddenly stopped his assault, knowing better than to waste more energy on venting his anger. Visas wheeled back, then rudely flicked her blade at his throat, playing the elegant fencer again. Atton brought his guard up by reflex in an awkward, last-second parry that twisted his wrist and loosened his grip.

Scowling, he did some backpedaling of his own, pawing at his bandolier, and pulled his last grenade from it. He knew bringing explosives into the fight would turn it into a very hair-raising and very short game of telekinetics, but if he could get it over to Visas before she was ready—

But no. The schutta's hand cut through the air, and the grenade jumped out of Atton's fingers, over the nearby railing, and into the depths before he could even get his thumb through the pinhole. She was on him again in a second, and their sabers met again in a flashing pinwheel of azure and crimson. Behind her, the pylons in the valley had all unfolded and were extended toward the sky, and a few in the two outer rings of them were starting to spark online. Atton began to suspect that, rather than not dying, the best he might get out of this day was seeing the look on Visas' face when they finally all lit up.

Their lightsabers crossed again at chest-level and ground together, the energy beams whining and straining in protest as they pressed against each other. They were there a long time—or it seemed so—and at some point Atton realized that he seemed to have run out of sweat. He still _felt_ fine, sort of, strained and aching and cracking, but still perfectly willing to keep fighting for another day and a half, whether or not he'd just fall to pieces when it was over be damned. Underlying all that, though, was a subtler sensation which he recognized as the icy, hope-you-enjoyed-your-last-meal feeling he'd had on the dropship.

A horrible sound reached his ears from some distance away, a rattling, anguished scream that overrode the electric shriek of the lightsabers and knifed its way through his focus. His dazzled eyes flicked to the side. _Kaevee…_

Past the crackling X of dicolored light, Visas Marr raised four fingers from the hilt of her lightsaber, and then the X was gone, because Atton was flying back over the catwalk. He had a great time landing, opting to just let go of his lightsaber rather than dismember himself as he bounced and rolled over the unforgiving durasteel.

Patches of the void and clumps of stars floated before his eyes. Untangling his arms and legs, he got up on one knee to find himself halfway back up the walkway. His lightsaber lay several meters ahead, still active, its fractious blade chewing a charred line in the floor. A ways past, he saw the burning brand of Visas' own weapon and was distantly puzzled at how she wasn't charging at him.

The pilot stretched out his left hand and groaned as he saw a shallow scorch line running diagonally along its back and over the wrist. His own flesh didn't smell as good as other people's. Grinding his teeth, he forcibly locked eyes on his fallen weapon, which rattled for a second before starting to roll toward him, dragging a wide, molten scar across the metal.

_Come on, come on, COME ON,_ he thought furiously, and the lightsaber finally flew toward him. He caught it with both hands, hissing with pain as his new wound reminded him of its existence. But the Force was still with him—lucky him—and it guided him, tightening his hold and tipping the blade horizontally to hold it just under his chin. Without warning, its light went supernova and filled his murky vision. He stared in something approaching terror, thinking the already less-than-expertly-reassembled emitter matrix was now failing completely—meaning the containment field would rupture, allowing the pent-up energy to escape in a manner similar to how energy "escaped" when a thermal detonator went off.

As his sight cleared, he realized that the saber wasn't spazzing out on its own—it was the quivering, staggered strand of Sith lightning flowing into it that was causing that. That was a microscopic relief, but Atton still had room to be dismayed as his eyes followed the bolt up to Visas' extended hand. He'd never seen her use that power before.

The two energy sources trembled and fluctuated, seeming almost to merge into each other at the point of contact, and Atton had no choice but to bet on his saber having more energy to dump than Visas did. One of them had to run out, and he knew that hardly anyone but a Sith Master was strong enough to throw those bolts around willy-nilly. Hopefully it meant she was getting desperate or cocky.

Atton slumped forward as the lightning stream died, seemingly taking his blade with it. Standing up, he thumbed the saber's activation switch, but the weapon only made a strange sort of electrical gargling sound and stayed off. Rather than try again, he stuffed it into a pocket and drew the vibroblade he had found in the security zone. Pitifully short though it was, it at least had a cortosis weave, and rather than feel stupid for his own deficiency in armament, he consoled himself that Visas was too arrogant to just carry a blaster and shoot him the second his lightsaber failed.

Atton's shorter weapon forced him to maintain a tight circle of defense. Visas closed in, probing with careful jabs toward his midsection that kept leaving singes on his jacket as he parried. The Sith's movements were just a little slower, more conservative, than before—she had indeed strained herself with the lightning blast. But with the shape Atton was in, he didn't think that would do him much good. His wounds, slight though they were, continually ate away at his focus. If she got one good hit in, that would be it for him.

He danced with Visas a while longer, letting her push him away from the center of MSG Control. The fact that the curtain was about to drop meant getting closer to an exit was now a priority, but leaving would be somewhat thorny with the Miraluka breathing down his neck.

He realized then that Kaevee's voice had stopped, and the unwelcome sense of worry began to build up in the back of his mind again. If only he'd had just a few more seconds to hack away at Silbus… but he hadn't, so he reflexively tossed that thought aside and hoped, for the kid's sake, that she was already dead. But what if she _wasn't?_ He'd need to find her, rescue her from the consequences of her heroism, and get her back to that hangar—after dealing with Silbus. And Visas.

Speaking of whom, she Force-leaped over Atton's head. Knowing his blade wasn't long enough to reach her, the pilot simply kept her in his sights as she landed in a crouch, blocking his prospective escape route. He wound up to slam a boot into the middle of her face, but her blade whipped diagonally upward where his leg would have been, and he fell back a stride instead.

The Miraluka slowly rose, turning to reduce her profile, her saber angled down—the Makashi ready stance—and, for a change, waited. Useless though it was to try to stare down a species without eyes, Atton locked onto the golden veil where hers would have been and took the opportunity to calculate.

He had no weapons left but the midget-sized vibroblade. The very fact Visas had paused implied that she was winded, but even if Atton whipped himself back into a frenzy for another offensive, his inferior reach would leave him vulnerable. In the end he opted for the one tactic he hadn't tried on Visas before: talking.

"Tired… yet?" His voice sounded strange—a little high-pitched, crazily mirthful, separated by gasps. "What say we… call it a draw?"

She came toward him—walking, not charging—and he backed away at the same speed. There was no time to finesse his words, to figure out what might get into her head. All Atton could do was talk and hope that something would draw blood, would chip away at her resolve, her dedication to the fight, or whatever kept her anchored in the Force.

"Y'know, you're gonna… hafta leave real soon." He jerked his head back, toward the window. "That thing's _on_… already going." The red blade snapped at his face, and he parried. "Really, I wouldn't lie to you…"

Then it happened.

The green flicker cast by the pylons turned into a flare that lit the whole concourse, casting black shadows and glittering fiercely off of the Miraluka's veil. An ensemble of alarms began to blare in tandem with the high-pitched wails and cries of machinery, as if the facility was a living titan of steel in the midst of some cataclysmic labor. Visas froze, her chin tilted upward, as if she was watching the magnified ripples that had at last begun to pass through the planet's mass shadow. Atton got his payoff—even with no eyes to widen, the face of the Sith was finally seized with the startled dread he had wanted to find there.

He couldn't help but gloat. "I know what you're thinking—how'd he do it? Got my goons spread around, they'd know if the _other Jedi_ had broken in… Too bad it's not so easy…"

He very nearly had to shout to be heard over the suicide-pangs of the Mass Shadow Generator. His sentence would have ended with, _to sense a droid_, but he trailed off as his ears sifted out a properly hellish but entirely un-mechanistic noise from the rest. His eyes, too, were drawn away from his opponent and off to the side as, somewhere in the indoor technoscape of silvery green-tinted gray, there was a brilliant orange-white glow as something caught fire.

* * *

The Nautolan's prattling continued another moment or two before his eyes finally found their way back to Kaevee. He cleared his throat again. "But what am I going to do with you, Human? You have the Force, and yes, plenty of hate. Hate that you could learn to use…" He inclined his head for a moment, hesitating, then laughed cruelly. "Oh, please—just _look_ at you squirming there like a jellyfish. You wouldn't last a month with my other students. It takes some _gumption_ to become a true Sith—"

Kaevee's free hand sprang toward him, fingers bent, and the alien's head snapped back as though jerked by an invisible noose, his sentence terminating in a prolonged, insensate gurgle. His cranial tendrils squirmed like caught serpents and his bony hands shot to his collar. Kaevee forgot her misgivings, feeding them all to the shadow that had found her, and felt herself strengthened. She poured every last spark of that new strength into her throttling grip until she thought her soul might go with it and disintegrate into the Force.

But even as he choked and his spindly body trembled, the Sith Lord resisted. Seconds passed. A tortured breath whistled down his throat, and though Kaevee felt the Force was still with her, she was now squeezing less and less on the alien's neck, and more and more an expanding barrier of Force energy _around_ his neck.

As she saw this she wavered, realizing that she had only taken him by surprise. She still was not strong enough, even with the shadow—and as soon as she realized this, the shadow left her and she crumpled on her side, limp and exhausted.

Released at last, the Sith Lord doubled over in a coughing fit. Even in her forsaken state, Kaevee dared to probe him with the Force for just an instant, hoping against hope to find some tiny vulnerability, but the barrier he had summoned was now a hardened, solid shell; even if she had the strength to try, she wouldn't be able to touch him. He stood then, hunched over, and she saw murder in his eyes. "Case… in point," he said, his voice low and quivering, keeping a tenuous grasp on his veneer of restraint. "One does not play _games_ with the dark, little Jedi."

Then he raised a half-closed hand and wrenched Kaevee into the air. The Padawan tried to struggle, but found that she could not even flail her limbs; completely encased in his Force grip, she hung splayed in midair like an insect pressed between two panes of glass, her head tilted back—and the pressure was building, pushing in from every direction. Her bones would crack and splinter, her organs would liquefy, and the Jedi Order would finally die with her.

_Help,_ she thought blankly. _Help, help, help…_ She could just barely see flashes from the far-off duel out the corner of her eye. Atton was too far away to help her, of course. Not only was Kaevee going to die, she would never know if her blind, ignorant impulse to save his life had meant anything to him at all—or if her death would mean only the passing of a nuisance from his life. _Stupid kid,_ he'd think as he found her mangled body. Worse yet, maybe he'd be right.

_Help…_

Again without warning, a far-reaching luminescent channel cut through the dark of Malachor and flowed into Kaevee, imparting strength yet again. But as soon as her spirit began to soar, it floundered—how could she use that strength? Spend it in another useless assault?

There was a critical pause as the Sith Lord regarded the Padawan with a contemptuous sneer that spoke of finality. Kaevee did not deliberate, did not wonder what Atris was expecting her to do, or what her dead Master would have expected. Her only thought at all was to survive just a little bit longer, to hold on as tight as she could to the bleeding edge of whatever small moment of life she still had. Above all, she was not ready to die because she wanted to die as a Jedi, and at some point since entering Singularity Base, in the pit of her heart, she had begun to understand that she was not a Jedi and hadn't been one for a very long time.

At the same moment that the Nautolan clenched his fist, Kaevee willed a barrier around herself, like the one protecting him. Her chin hit her chest, her knees bent, her ankles locked together, and her arms folded over her torso as the dark side's crushing power bore in on her, but the strength Atris was giving her could keep it at bay—for now. The Sith Lord raised a brow, but kept up the pressure. He was the one who could draw on the awful strength of Malachor, not Kaevee, and it was plain that Atris had only bought her a few seconds.

Forcing agonized, rattling breaths through a half-closed windpipe, the Padawan flicked her eyes upward to meet the alien's. The energy pylons outside continued their rhythmic flares, adding a ghostly quality to his already sickly countenance, and deepening the long shadow that he cast back toward the outer section of MSG Control.

Something _in_ his shadow caught her eye—a spot of thicker, almost solid darkness—but as soon as it did, the silver-green flashes that played across the concourse doubled their intensity. The Nautolan hissed, at first shielding his eyes with his free hand, but then stared past her and out the giant window, his intense expression melting to a look of stupefied horror. As his mouth dropped open, he dropped Kaevee, who fell back to the catwalk, gasping like a fish.

"No, no, no, no, no," he murmured. "He couldn't have— How…?"

Lifting her pounding head, Kaevee looked forward. Behind the Sith, a faint, blurry red light glimmered close to the floor. It seemed that someone besides Atris had heard her mental call for help.

There was a whisper of danger in the Force, and Kaevee feebly scooted herself backward, but the effort dragged blades through her insides, and she cried out. Her voice snapped the Sith Lord out of his preoccupation, and he looked down at her—but the Force must have been trying to whisper to him as well, because then he spun around to face whatever had come up behind him, his dark energy quickly rejuvenating itself and preparing to strike. But while he was still turning, the laigrek craned its neck back and spewed its molten breath on him.

The Sith Lord screamed like no one Kaevee had ever heard in her life; it was a sound of such shrill and otherworldly agony that it seemed as though a fissure had opened between two layers of reality, allowing the everlasting death-rattle of Malachor itself to begin to spill through into the sensible world. The alien jumped and thrashed about like a madman, futilely trying to rip off his heavy robes as flames swept across them, reaching up to gnaw at his face; his eyes sizzled and his head-tendrils ignited. Kaevee watched, petrified, until he tumbled to the catwalk, flopping and squirming about. Then she jammed her fingers into her ears, pulled her knees up to her chest, and buried her face in her cloak.

At some point the hellish sound retreated—gradually, perhaps, as though disappearing into the depths of some fathomless pit. When it seemed to be gone at last, the Padawan looked about and found herself alone. Seeing the rails about the edge of the catwalk beside her, she took hold of them and climbed to her feet. It was a labor that stole whimpers from her mouth and tears from her bloodshot eyes. Her bones felt like twigs. It took three or four tries to get her legs underneath her, and even when she succeeded, she ended up not leaning against the rail so much as hanging from it like a corpse that had fallen there.

The Sith Lord lay two meters from her, a curled, shriveled, twisted black muddle that reeked of burning. Spidered out on top of him was the laigrek, the one front scythe-leg that had dragged it from the control room sunk deep into his belly. The faintest glow still remained in its compound eye, but it was as still as the corpse beneath it.

Kaevee stared dumbfounded for a moment, but the sight could not hold her attention for long, soon giving way to the noise of mechanical commotion about her: the multitudinous screeches of alarms, the grinds and roars of titanic engines, and piercing electric whines and buzzes. The facility itself seemed to be moving beneath her.

She looked the other way, toward the massive window. The steel valley was ablaze with silver-green light, sparking with the glows that sheathed the giant metal teeth—sheathed _all_ of them now, she realized. The drexls, which had previously been gliding repetitively over the area, seemed to have turned shy and were gradually distancing themselves in ever-widening circles of flight. Meanwhile, the central pit disgorged needle-thin, spiraling arcs of energy into the clouds, which now seemed filled with a ghostly light. Atton had done it, Kaevee realized. Somehow. Malachor would be destroyed…

Some platforms over, the pilot was still locked in his duel with the Sith: Visas Marr, the same one as on Dantooine. But instead of a lightsaber, Atton had only a short sword, and it was clear he was losing, entirely on defensive. Buying himself a few seconds of breathing room with a sudden backpedal, he turned his head toward Kaevee. Though their stares seemed to meet, she struggled to read his face, what with the distance and the glaring light outside. But the pilot's voice came bounding across the concourse, even managing to carry over the thunder of the machine. "_KAEVEE, GET OUTTA HERE!_"

_I can't move,_ she tried to say, but her lips didn't really work. Looking down, she found her hands and arms entwined about the railing as though welded to it. She had no legs. Her body was shutting down. Her thoughts, too, seemed to be disintegrating. She was terrified to blink; if she closed her eyes she would let go of the rail and fall into the abyss without so much as a scream.

But for all that, she still had the Force—just a little bit left. She clung to that fact even as everything else turned fuzzy and faint. She had to use the Force. She had to save Atton. It was the whole reason she had plunged herself into this nightmare. _Save Atton._

Throwing whatever remained of herself into the Force, Kaevee left her senses as far behind as she dared and reached out over the valley, looking for something in the fractured skies.

* * *

_Damn stupid kid, totals are nineteen-nine, play the minus ten card, come on you schutta, is that all you've got, totals are nine to nine_—

Atton was running on fumes as he continued his retreat down the catwalk toward the center of the base, toward the eye of the brewing storm, his face screwed up in a murderous, maniacal scowl as he blocked the lightsaber again and again. He could barely feel his fingers. Concern for Kaevee had seized at him again, but his mind quickly sank into a vortex of blackening, contradictory half-thoughts as the duel resumed, and it was far too late in the game to convert any of his emotions into anything useful.

The exhaustion that blanketed him now felt one and the same as the chilling finality that he'd had since the beginning of his return to Malachor, and part of him embraced it as something comforting. He hadn't exactly planned on dying here, as far as he knew, but something felt right about it. It had something to do with all the bodies he'd left behind in the security zone, with the sight of the Headmaster's pride fleeing from his face under Atton's onslaught, with the two dead Marauders, and with how it had taken all _that_ before Visas would _finally_ manage to finish him off. And with how his death would do nothing at all to stop the Mass Shadow Generator, and Visas had to know it even as she continued their dance of death, stubborn to the end as all Forcefuls were.

Bao-Dur's plan would be carried out, though he hadn't lived to see it. Malachor's destruction would throw the Sith Remnant into confusion and give the Republic a shot in the arm to resist the impending invasion. And the Force would carry the echoes of what Atton had done up the Nagian Corridor and all the way back to the ancient empire, back to Meetra. And maybe, if against the odds there was justice in the Force after all, he'd somehow get to be there in the echoes when they reached her so he could laugh in her face.

He fell back and back, his weapon guided by what little remained of his reflexes. The only thing that cut through the starflares of the Mass Shadow Generator was the red blade of Visas' lightsaber, repeatedly searing and sparking against Atton's sword, close to where the blade began. The vibroblade felt like a club in his hands; one well-timed cut would go through the hilt and right into him, and then he would join the rest of Malachor. Again, it wasn't ideal, but it felt right in a way.

They had reached the catwalk's end when something strange happened.

Visas stopped cold, seeming once again to peer up into the bedeviled skyline. Also coming to a halt some paces away, Atton watched as the Miraluka extinguished her blade, turned tail, and sprinted back the way they had come. Before he could get his wits back enough to be confused, he had yet another feeling that he should duck. As if he needed more encouragement, there was also a skull-shaking crash as something broke through the transparisteel window some twenty feet above him.

He hit the floor, pulling his jacket up over his head as gleaming shards rained down around him, and the catwalk buckled as something _very_ heavy landed not too far ahead. Not particularly interested in finding out what it was, Atton scrambled away from the now-suspect bridge and onto the ringed walkway behind him.

What he saw as he got to his feet was somewhat puzzling. A small mountain of muscle was crawling—or slithering, whatever—after Visas, its weight causing the catwalk to squeal and sag. When its supports gave way and it fell crashing into the depths of the concourse, the creature spread monstrous wings and took to the air, its pale hide lit up almost white by the flashing pylons outside. Staring in astonishment, Atton wondered since when in the hell they had _drexls_ here.

A figure moving along another walkway some distance down and to the left caught his eye—Visas. As soon as Atton recognized her, the drexl seemed to do the same and swooped down toward her, reaching with clawed mandibles that could slash her in two. The Miraluka leaped aside, but the beast's huge tail smashed through the catwalk as it passed, and its imminent collapse forced her to leap to another one.

Atton would have been content to watch the spectacle, but he was startled by an amplified series of beeps in his ear. He spun around, his vibroblade half-raised, but found only the Remote floating before him. Relaxing a bit, he struggled to decipher the machine's chatter from the noise around them. "Yeah, I _noticed_," he said with a lazy gesture at the valley. "Mission accomplished, good job."

The droid spasmodically talked over him, though, and as he listened harder he realized the annoying thing wanted to lead him somewhere. He sheathed his vibroblade and followed the Remote some distance down the walkway and out onto one of the bridging catwalks, where he found Kaevee clinging to the safety rail. Nearby, there lay a blackened husk that had once been Silbus, decorated by the corpse of a giant bug, but they didn't hold Atton's attention for long. The girl's head was turned toward him as though she had expected his approach, but even before closing the distance, he could make out her ashen face and thousand-kilometer stare.

"Kid? Kid, you with me? Kaevee?" He prodded her shoulder, snapped his fingers in front of her eyes, and felt her pulse, and all the while his throat tightened as what remained of the haze of battle evaporated from his mind, leaving more than enough room for his emotions to crash into one another.

Was she going to die on him _now_, right after he'd finally reached her, and after whatever Silbus had put her through? Did she literally need to die before she finally learned what it cost to play hero all the time? She wouldn't have been the first Jedi to. _Damn the Jedi,_ he thought. _Damn Atris, stupid old hag. Why'd she send me to Dantooine? Why couldn't we just leave this kid alone?_

He swallowed the maelstrom of frustrations whole. Once again he was annoyed by Kaevee's strange knack for getting under his skin without even trying to. As he set about prying her off of the rail, her gaze refocused a bit. "I saved you, Atton," she murmured as he half-laid, half-dropped her on her back. She was like a talking corpse.

Atton paused. Looking back on what had happened moments before with the drexl, it was too convenient—how it had completely ignored him and seemed intent _only_ on having a Sith for dinner. With that and Kaevee's knack for Beast Control, He was able to put two and two together. So she had saved him in a way. And she'd apparently managed to kill Silbus with the help of her bug.

Atton was begrudgingly a little impressed, but he was not about to feed her ego by sharing that. "You and me are gonna talk later," he said gruffly before slinging her up onto his shoulders. He was surprised at how light she was. They'd need to fatten her up, add nerf steaks to her diet or something.

With the Remote close behind, he shambled his way down the catwalk and toward one of the exits. Using the last speck of his power, he tried to keep his Force sense active, in case there were any incoming last-minute dangers aside from the planet being about to implode… There had been troopers, assassins, a Sith Lord, and Marauders. Who did that leave? "All I need now is that damn Wookiee to show up," he muttered.

"What's… a Wookiee?" asked Kaevee dreamily.

"Forget it."

At the mouth of the hallway leading back to Security Zone C, they met an out-of-breath squad of Republic troopers. Their leader explained, "Ship's ready to go—we're here to evacuate your dumb asses! _Major_ says you're too important to lose!"

Atton, who had forgotten how fun it was to get yelled at by COs, just told him, "Fine by me," and followed as they charged back up the darkened corridor.

* * *

If nothing else, Malachor was a place where people lost themselves, and in that respect Kaevee was just one of many.

She was aware when Atton reached her at last. She recognized his face and was struck by how different it looked, as though his aloof countenance had finally cracked. But as while he was carrying her, and she was starting to puzzle out how this could have happened, he disappeared—and so did everything else. Singularity Base left her, with all its towering and burrowing ferrocrete and steel, and its shifting, bellowing machinery, and Malachor V, and the two fleets warring above it. Even the stars hid themselves. Everything was gone except Kaevee and the void.

And her Master.

She was back in that rare nightmare again, marooned in a perfect black expanse with nothing—not even her own body—and no one else but Emon suspended before her, frozen in some kind of painful slumber by an awful white glow that enveloped him.

Kaevee wanted to wake him. Something awful had happened to her. She had been dying or almost dying, and killing, and then she had run away into this place—maybe. She wasn't sure why she was here, but knew that she needed Emon's help. She willed herself closer to him, wishing that she had a hand in this void to bring up to touch his cheek…

The white glow that enclosed her Master flashed, then surged crimson. A shudder passed through Emon's body and his head jerked up. His eyes snapped open, looking ahead, looking at _Kaevee_, with something approaching horror.

Kaevee heard screams, one of them perhaps her own, but in a second they were gone and she found herself in a cramped, noisy room. There were voices and moving shapes that she took to be people, but the details were fuzzy and indistinct. Though she was aware enough of her body to realize that she was lying down, she couldn't seem to move herself, as though she was still in the void somehow. Even so, she tried to be as still and silent as possible. She didn't want to see Emon again, didn't want to see him looking at her like that…

A few moments passed, and Kaevee realized that she was awake; Emon was long dead, it had only been a bad dream, and she was… where?

As her senses sharpened again, she realized that she was chilly—someone had taken her cloak, leaving just the tunic. A sharp little pain on one arm, fresher than and distinct from her many bruises, led her to roll up the sleeve there; underneath she found the neat prick left by a needle. Cautiously she lifted her head, which pounded, but not excruciatingly so.

The room whirled with activity and thrummed with unpleasant sounds—people groaning, shouting, and conversing. She was in a bed, one of several dozen set in rows, each of them occupied. As Kaevee looked from one to the next, she recognized men with missing arms or legs, or other terrible wounds—the same ones from Singularity Base. Off in a corner, several soldiers were rifling through cabinets of medical supplies and passing them off to others who meandered among the beds, tending to their occupants as well as they could.

Feeling obscurely embarrassed, Kaevee sat up and started to shift her legs toward the edge of the bed, only for one of the medics to appear in front of her, hefting a case of stimpacks under one arm. "Hey, _take it easy_, kid," he said sternly, putting his free hand on her shoulder. "You were in shock."

"What's… going on?" Kaevee fumbled, not looking at his eyes.

"We're getting the hell outta here. Just take it easy." With that, he firmly—though not roughly—pushed her back down onto the bed and went off.

Kaevee stared at the ceiling, her resentment somewhat diluted by perplexity. _Getting the hell out of where?_ she thought, immediately before it hit her. Behind all the noise, there was a steady, omnipresent rumble which faded as the transport broke atmosphere. _The transport!_ She remembered now.

A feverish, irrational sort of urgency took hold of her. She had to get out of that room; she didn't belong there. "I'm not a _kid_," she grumbled, looking around again and spying a door. When none of the medics were close by, she slid from the bed. Though her legs were a little unsteady, she made it through the door, braced herself against a wall, and inelegantly ambled down the corridor toward a door leading… somewhere or other.

The room beyond resembled the main cabin of the dropship she had ridden down to Malachor, except that it was somehow even more cramped despite the plethora of empty jumpseats, its ceilings lower and its aisles narrower. She glanced about anxiously, her eyes passing over the grubby, exhausted Republic soldiers scattered about. Whatever she was looking for seemed beyond her conscious desires, and it pulled her across two aisles.

Looking down the length of the second gave her pause. Cole was sitting near a far corner, strapped in like the soldiers. The spacer didn't see her. His eyes were closed, his face screwed up; maybe he was in the middle of his own nightmare. Kaevee watched him pityingly, but a bitter pain welled up inside her as she remembered the last words they had traded. Yet it felt dulled somehow, as though it had happened a very, very long time ago.

When she turned around, she forgot about Cole. On the nearby wall was a small window affording a view of the back of the transport, which sloped down slightly, and a few Republic corvettes and fighters flying escort, presumably bringing up the withdrawing fleet's rear. Beyond them, shrunk enough by distance that it seemed the size of Kaevee's palm, hung what had to be Malachor V. The strange rings and drifts of silver-green energy she had seen on her way in were gone; in their place was a shimmering, undulating wave that encircled the ruined world and its orbiting debris like a planetary shield on the verge of collapsing. Outside the field there was a handful of Sith cruisers, barely visible except for the winks of light as they fled from realspace.

Kaevee stared, squinting against the awful gleam, and her flesh crawled as the Force within her awakened to a sound. It came as though from a tremendous distance, but was horribly familiar—screams.

At that point time seemed to freeze, like a glitch in a holorecording, as Malachor's orbit was eclipsed by a perfect sphere of solid, actinic white, so startlingly pure that it could have been a hole ripped in space itself. But in the blink of an eye the orb was gone, collapsing into its center and disappearing like a ship entering hyperspace.

Murmurs spread through the transport's cabin—the men must have seen it. Kaevee was left staring at a now completely unremarkable and empty patch of space where a dead world, and before that a whole one, had once been. If she looked away, she would not be able to find the spot again.

Her breath caught as she realized that the screams in the Force were gone. Now it was _silence_ that was hitting her; it was the silence of a dreamless sleep, infinitely exhausted and infinitely satisfying. Mystified, tantalized, and drained, she sank into the nearest jumpseat and put her head in her hands.

She had never missed Dantooine so much before.


	29. Recognitions and Repairs

Admiral Opelle scrolled down the readout of the datapad on his desk with perfunctory flicks of an index finger. "…described you, _and_ Miss Kaevee, as reckless, unprofessional, foolhardy, fit for the brig…," he trailed off, his good eye looking up to meet Atton's. "I don't need to go on, do I?"

"Is 'daring and heroic' anywhere in the report?"

Opelle shook his head, deaf to the joke. "The major would say there's no place for heroics in the Republic Army. He may have a point, but it's just all the more reason to remember I didn't recruit you into the army. Your team was there to do what the rank-and-file soldiers would not and could not do. What matters to me is that you did."

Atton sat back a little, saying nothing. It wasn't much of a surprise, but it was a relief to know that "his team" had such latitude. It did not escape him, however, that this was the same sort of carte blanche that the Jedi had once been decorated with. _Maybe he really does think that's what we are._

The admiral shut the datapad off and continued. "However, I don't plan on making Malachor—I mean, the front lines—a habit for you. I don't want to push your luck too far. Your next assignments will involve work that's lower-profile, but no less important."

By this point, Atton was more or less convinced that pushing luck was basically his profession, but he wouldn't argue the point. "Yeah? Like what?"

Admiral Opelle's good eye wandered, and a thin smile crept across his face. "I have several things in mind… but right now my full attention is needed elsewhere. We've been in talks with the Office of the Chancellor, the Ministry of Defense, other admirals and their staff, certain key senators. They've all seen the data you provided, and word's spreading. Things are happening, and soon they will start happening quickly. But before they do, you and your team should rest. I think you've earned it."

Atton stood up. "I think I have too."

A moment later he was strolling back up the long corridor from the admiral's office and out into the greater labyrinth of the ship. Uniformed crewmembers and guards gave him restrained nods, having seen him enough times to recognize him by now. He was starting to remember their faces as well, and occasionally felt a reflexive twinge of disappointment. For some reason he kept expecting, more like _wishing_, that sooner or later he'd see someone he had fought with on Malachor just days earlier.

Well, it wasn't all bad. He wouldn't have enjoyed seeing Hawkins again.

He stepped alone into a turbolift which had a little viewport in the back wall. The _Valiant_'s fleet was between jumps on its way back to the shipyards of Arkania. Past the formations of cruisers and corvettes, the long, twisted ribbon of a star-white nebula cut a groove across the endless void. As he rode the turbolift down to the hangar bays, Atton's gaze hopped from one ship to the next. Each one had been uniquely mutilated by turbolaser fire.

Now that he officially had nothing to do for a little while, his thoughts were freer to wander than they had been in some time, and he considered the strange position he had gotten himself into. Phrases that the admiral had used hung heavy on his mind: _your_ _team_, _next assignments_, _important work_. He had cut himself loose from Meetra, only to land himself at someone else's beck and call. Not that he was surprised. He just hadn't thought this far ahead. In some ways, it was good to be given things to do—goals, reasons to go on. Making it all up for himself as he went along was more stressful. But he hadn't been a soldier in a long time and never would be again.

The guard stationed outside the _Ebon Hawk_'s bay told him, "Your Jedi friend's aboard. Went in about an hour ago."

Atton had a hunch who he meant, but still asked, "Which one, was it the kid?"

"Yeah. Kaevee. Said she had to practice something."

The man shrugged and Atton headed into the bay, where he found the _Hawk_'s loading ramp extended. Keeping his thoughts quiet, he tiptoed aboard. At the top of the ramp, he was treated to the perhaps disturbingly-not-disturbing sight of a plasteel drum hovering around the garage in lazy, meandering arcs like it was looking for someplace to land. Kaevee stood a few paces inside with her back to the entrance, one hand outstretched.

Atton edged into the doorway and watched her for a moment. A quick peek through the Force showed him a glimpse of her frame of mind, which was characteristically mixed—determination flavored with chagrin and mental distractions. The guard had said she mentioned practice, but it seemed plain to Atton that she was just killing time. The real activity, if anything, was what was going on in her head.

He had only really spoken to the girl once since Malachor, partly to piece together everything that had happened on her side of things. He'd had to coax some out it of her. She'd seemed particularly embarrassed to admit that she'd used a _blaster_ to kill a Sith Marauder in one of the control rooms.

Her story's conclusion had left Atton suspecting that some details were left out. Rather than pursue them, however, he'd dutifully harangued her for bucking orders and charging stupidly into danger alone. She hadn't argued—she was in her distinctive collapse-into-myself mood—but she stank of a tension that belied her meek, apologetic exterior, and Atton felt certain that she wasn't really buying it. He thought he knew why. From Kaevee's perspective, her reckless antics must have seemed no different from Atton's own last-ditch gambit.

The girl cast an incidental glance to her left, catching Atton out the corner of her eye, and started. The plasteel drum plummeted toward the floor, but she recovered and caught it a few inches before impact and set it down. She turned to him, her words first fiery, then timid. "_Atton_, what do you— Don't do that, _please_."

Since Malachor, he hadn't seen her in her Jedi getup—only the plain grays she'd been given when they had first come aboard the _Valiant_. Her hair was shorter now, shoulder-length, and her bangs were no longer blinding her half the time—but the locks and twines were still frazzled, and uneven to boot, which told Atton that she had done the job herself. Still, it was an anomalous sign of something like hygienic awareness, and Atton understood people well enough to be able to guess that it meant something. Malachor had left her shaken, much more than even Daluuj had. For better or worse, it was too early to say.

"Sorry, didn't mean to," he said. "I just need something from the cargo hold."

"Oh." The girl brought her hands together and rubbed at her wrists idly. A beat passed, and she nodded to port, adding, "Well, it's over there…"

_It's just riveting to talk to you,_ Atton almost replied. He started to head down the corridor, but paused. She was tracking him with this ridiculous, pitiful look like she was dying of embarrassment, or of wanting to ask something but being too sullen and morose to try. Atton thought he had a good guess of what it was.

"_Okay_, fine," he sighed. "You saved my ass, so yes, thank you, I appreciate it. I'm grateful." Somehow it was a little hard to say, though it wasn't a lie. "But don't be getting cocky. I've still got you two to one."

The tension on Kaevee's face began to ease. "Yeah, I guess you do."

"And if it really matters to you that much, I'd be even more grateful if you'd just _listen_ to me when I tell you things. Who knows, you might land easier next time." Remembering he hadn't come aboard to lecture her, he added, "Something to think about," and went on his way. She didn't follow him.

As he passed through the main hold, he noticed Ecksee. Finally repaired but not yet reactivated, the probe droid lay on the dining table, his limbs folded up like the ribs of a closed umbrella. The Remote hung suspended in standby mode close by, as though keeping a vigil over him.

Still far from pristine, the _Ebon Hawk_ wordlessly nagged Atton even as he neared his singular objective. He recalled that he'd never _quite_ finished his work on the power coupling. Missing panels in the ceiling and walls testified to other components and sections still needing attention. And he hadn't checked on the turbolasers since the skirmish near Ord Lonesome…

_Tomorrow,_ he told himself as he entered the cargo hold. He opened one of the containers, dug down to the bottom of the medpacks, and found the last bottle of Corellian ale smiling up at him. He smiled back.

A minute or two away from the guest quarters, he ran into Cole at a cross intersection. The spacer was walking along with his eyes on the floor, apparently lost in thought, but looked up when they were a few paces from each other. "Mister Death Wish," he said, his face brightening. Eying the bottle in the pilot's hand, he asked, "Spoils of victory?"

Atton nodded. "Got a favor to ask you."

Cole waited.

"Can you meet me at the _Hawk_ tomorrow at, say, fifteen-hundred? Help me and the droids fix up some things?"

"Sure, I can be awake by then."

"Good."

Cole bit his lower lip, then asked, "How's Kaevee? You seen her?"

"She'll be fine. Needs R&R, like the rest of us." Atton wasn't sure what to make of the other man's concern—if that's what it was—but in any case the question reminded him of something. "She told me about when you wouldn't follow her farther into the base."

"Good times," Cole remarked, suppressing a grimace.

"Look, I need to tell you. Not helping her charge into certain death, that's well and good. You made the right call there. But the way she made it sound, for you it was just as much about staying away from the Sith as it was about sticking to the plan." Atton paused, waiting for Cole to correct him.

The guy's face went blank. "Uh-huh…"

"The first part of that, it's not gonna fly in the future. If we're on some mission, and we _do_ need you to help deal with Sith… Well, I don't think we're gonna set you up for any lightsaber duels, but when we need you to do something, you won't get to sit it out."

"Fine and dandy an attitude for you to have," Cole retorted. "But you've got the Force, so you can _afford_ to be crazy. Not me. Shoot a blaster, fly a ship, pull off a con, that I can do. But Jedi and Sith, they're outta my league. You don't know what you're doing when you try and tell an ordinary guy like me—"

"Don't be too sure what I know," Atton broke in. "_I_ didn't always have the Force."

"Well, good for you, but I'm not cut out for this. I run cargo."

"Not anymore. You're a professional galaxy-saver now. And nobody in this business is allowed to be a normal person."

"But I _am_ a normal person!" Cole whined helplessly.

"You won't be when we're through with you."

Admitting defeat, the spacer shrugged his shoulders, and Atton's mind drifted back to his own early days aboard the _Ebon Hawk_. His first thought was that this routine of Cole's was a little too familiar to take at face value. On the other hand, there _were_ a lot of normal people in the galaxy, and whether or not this guy was one of them, there was something to be said for normalcy when it could be found. Or made.

After a moment, Cole's face relaxed, and he looked again at the bottle of ale. "Is that the last one?"

Atton shifted it to his other hand. "Yeah… Hey, you play pazaak?"

* * *

After the pilot had left, Kaevee continued her nominal exercise in telekinesis. But she soon found herself unable to keep the drum from wobbling and bobbing as she moved it around the garage, and finally she slammed it to the floor in frustration. Sighing, she sat down on the container and brooded.

She hung her head, letting her eyes drift shut for a moment. Since Malachor, sleep had been more elusive than usual. Even when she found it, it was sullied by nightmares, most of them replays or variations of what she had gone through in that evil place; wading across seas of bodies or being chased through endless control rooms by the Nautolan. Waking allowed her to comfort herself that Malachor was gone—_forever_—and that she had survived, but the victory was a bitter one. She felt hollowed out, like she had on Belsavis after her argument with Atton and Atris.

So much had gone wrong. Before Malachor, she may have hoped that the challenge of a real battle with the Sith would bolster her connection to the Force. But if anything, it felt _weaker_, frayed, and she couldn't find it in herself to be particularly proud of anything she'd done there.

Atton's clumsy and reluctant way of thanking her for saving his life wasn't what she had hoped for, but it didn't add much to her unease either. The accusations he had made, and for that matter Cole's before him, now cut to the bone. She had thoughtlessly thrown herself into danger, just _assuming_ she would find a way through it. Were it not for an entire host of external factors and coincidences, such as the extraordinary tenacity of her laigrek, or Atris augmenting her strength in the Force, or Atton carrying her out of MSG Control, Kaevee would certainly have died.

Feeling the absence of her pet more acutely than she had ever felt its presence, she got up and shuffled to the starboard dormitory. Leaning her head against the doorframe, she eyed the compartment under her cot, where Master Vrook's lightsaber lay—still broken.

She had tried to tell herself that it just was the will of the Force, that she had been _meant_ to survive Malachor, just as she had for the past eleven years. But nothing put the lie to that idea more than the memory of what she had seen after blacking out in the facility—Emon being somehow pulled out of his… stasis? Sleep? Afterlife?... only to look at his own Padawan with terror. Dreadful though it was to revisit this image, Kaevee had spent long hours trying to make sense of it. A vision, some sign from the Force, her dead Master's spirit, a dream, a hallucination? She didn't know what it was, but in time she had begun, perhaps, to understand what it _meant_.

_You're not even a Jedi yourself,_ Atton had told her on Belsavis, _just some half-trained Padawan._

And later, after Cole got stuck to the _Ebon Hawk_, Atris had asked Kaevee if she could recite the Jedi Code—and she couldn't. She remembered some of it _now_; on Malachor, when the Nautolan Sith had been raking through her mind, one of the shards of memory that had resurfaced came from when she had been a girl, probably ten or eleven, repeating the code for Emon. _There is no passion; there is serenity._ But even that was incomplete, and though Kaevee did not doubt there was truth in that cryptic axiom, she could not imagine what it had to do with herself as she had been since the Enclave's destruction.

She knew the meaning of her vision, or whatever it had been. Emon had reacted to her with dismay because he did not recognize her as a Jedi. Because she wasn't one. Long ago she had known the code, known the other precepts, and had trusted in the Force. And without realizing it she had lost those things—as surely as she had lost her lightsaber, lost her Master, and lost the Order.

She went to the main hold, where she spent a few minutes fiddling with the holotable controls before figuring out how to turn on the galaxy map. Without her meaning to, her eyes alighted first on the Malachor system, on the border of the dark expanse where a hidden Sith Empire reigned. Purposefully she looked away, and soon picked out Dantooine's star from the field of pinpoint lights.

The Jedi Enclave she knew had not been the only one of its kind. Aside from the Great Temple on Coruscant, the Order had other academies, havens, and libraries dispersed across known space. Its legacy covered a wide area, and there had to be many places in the galaxy where Jedi could be hiding—where they _had_ to be hiding, Kaevee told herself. And if the Force did have a will, if it was her destiny to complete her training, then surely she would find her way to them, sooner or later. But until she did…

With the click of a button, she shut down the holotable and headed for the loading ramp.

Until she did, she would have to be patient and actually let other people guide her in the meantime. They may not have been Jedi, but there were still some things that Kaevee needed to learn with their help. And, more importantly, there were perhaps things that she needed to _unlearn_ as well.

A vague anxiety nipped at Kaevee's heels as she left the _Ebon Hawk_ and headed back toward the guest quarters, and gradually she quickened her pace. Upon reaching her destination, she was so intent on not losing her nerve that she actually rapped on the door instead of pressing the chimer.

"Come in." The voice from within was distant, almost a murmur.

Kaevee opened the door, expecting for some reason that the lights would be off. They weren't. On the right side of the room was a pristinely-made bed. On the opposite side was Atris, sitting at a table which was bare except for a datapad whose screen gave off a soft blue glow. Though the old woman's eyes were veiled as usual by the hood of her smoke-gray robe, she nevertheless turned her head toward her visitor and offered a smile. "Kaevee. Welcome back… Please sit down; I've had hardly any visitors of late."

Somewhat reassured by her hostess' pleasant demeanor, Kaevee went in and sat across from her. "Oh, uh… I'm sorry. I've needed time to think."

"No need to apologize," Atris replied. She tipped her head toward the datapad. "_I've_ needed time to read. I always preferred holocrons, but this is… simpler."

"What've you been reading?"

"History. What else is there?"

Kaevee shrugged, folded her arms in front of herself, and a long moment passed filled only by the sterile, endless-breathing sound of the gargantuan starship that carried them. There was no shortage of things she wanted to say to Atris, but she couldn't seem to decide which of them to say first; she wasn't quite sure which of them she could make herself say at all.

The old woman broke the silence. "What happened to you, Kaevee?"

Kaevee wasn't startled by the directness of the question. If anything, it was a relief—but still her eyes sank to the table. "I didn't listen to you," she managed to say. "I almost died. More than once."

"Yet here you are."

"Yeah… but only thanks to you. And Atton. And my laigrek. I can't keep going on the way I have. I'm not—" She stopped herself, realizing the sentence would have ended, _not a Jedi_, and even though it was true, admitting it out loud was a bridge too far. But she could come close. "I need help. I need you to teach me about the Force. And teach me how to… move on."

There was another long, still moment, during which Atris slowly inclined her head as though contemplating what her guest had said to her. Finally she nodded, gingerly pushed her chair back, and stood up. "Very well. We will speak of these things. But first…" She took up her cane and pointed with it at the center of the room. "Sit there. We will meditate."

Kaevee eyed the indicated spot on the floor as though a pit had opened up in it. "I can't remember—"

"I will teach you how."

Telling herself that this was what she knew she needed, Kaevee went over and sat down cross-legged. As she closed her eyes, the old words drifted up out of her heart like a column of smoke. _I am a Jedi, the Force is with me, I am a Jedi, the Force is with me…_ The mantra was warm. It was comfortable.

And it was a lie. Her throat tightened a little as she stopped it up. _I'm sorry, Master. I'm sorry I forgot so much._

She did not notice that Atris had sat down across from her until she heard the old woman's voice again. "Still yourself. Breathe. Let the Force flow into you."

Kaevee felt the Force, fundamentally as she always had, but she was still only floating on its surface. She made herself breathe slower, deeper, but already she was out of her element—or what she had long believed was her element. Without opening her eyes she asked, "How?"

"Listen to the silence."

As bizarre as the command was, Kaevee tried to carry it out. But the seconds ticked by and she still floundered on the surface of peace, or unity, or whatever the goal of meditation was, and she heard only the vexing sound of space travel—the hiss of air through the _Valiant_'s ventilation system, the steady hum of electricity through its conduits, the droning of its engines. Straining against it, she murmured, "I can't. There's so much _noise…_"

"Quiet." Though Atris' voice was low, it had the force of a poke from her cane. "Imagine yourself in a room…" For some reason she hesitated. "…of a thousand fountains. They flow endlessly, effortlessly, clear as crystal. Listen to them…"

Kaevee felt a tickle of distraction; if it was up to her, she'd have put the fountains outside and not in a room. She wasn't giving the lesson, though, so she painted the scene in her mind and tried to hold it between herself and the noise, tried to turn the sterile ambiance of the _Valiant_ into the rumble of the waters. She thought of herself slowly approaching one of the fountains, walking into its mist and letting it settle on herself. She thought of Daluuj, of the subtle little ecstasy of emerging from the _Ebon Hawk_ and feeling the rain.

"Now imagine yourself in the sanctuary on Belsavis. Imagine the cistern, its water still and shining… and listen to it."

That was a less pleasant image, but Kaevee dutifully drew it up. She remembered looking down into the cistern, her world in pieces, as in a way it still was, and did so again in her mind's eye. There was still noise, but there was also the image and silence of the cistern, and beyond those things the Force. It was not a Force _power_ such as those Kaevee knew about, but the Force _itself_, which in a way she had lost track of over the years, and which in all its incomprehensible purity orbited outside her reach.

She accepted that it would remain that way—for now—and for a long time she sat with Atris, wrestling with the noise and resting in the silence.


	30. Times of War

[The following is the closing segment of the Extraordinary Address of Supreme Chancellor Galligan Barris, given upon the signing of the preemptive Declaration of War against the Second Sith Empire.]

_It is true. this will be a terrible struggle, one for which we have not had time to fully prepare. The infrastructure and the weapons that we have been building these past six years will have to be enough for us—but they will, because we have something on our side more powerful than mere weapons. We have the indomitable spirit of our great Republic, that same spirit which has animated and upheld and sustained us in spite of the efforts of every threat from within and without._

_That spirit guided us six years ago, when we withstood the Sith's cowardly surprise attack on Telos IV and sent them packing. It strengthened us to overcome impossible odds, as when we held the line against the traitors Revan and Malak, and all their bloodthirsty issue. As, likewise, we endured and triumphed over the Mandalorians, over Exar Kun, and over the imperialist Hutts._

_And so we will triumph again. However powerful this new Sith Empire may be, we will be as a rock against which their onslaught will break, because our spirit is greater than theirs. It is greater than theirs because we fight not out of hatred for what we see before us, but out of love for what stands behind us: our homes, our families, our children, our values, and our way of life. For twenty thousand years, a hundred million peoples have lived proudly and prosperously beneath the eight-spoked banner of liberty. And mark my words: come Hell or hard vacuum, they will for twenty thousand more. No armada that cuts between the stars is mighty enough to take that achievement away from us._

* * *

"All the same, m'lady, I would be much more confident, had I the benefit of your counsel." Threaded though it was with static, the transmission carried Admiral Varko's voice from the stronghold of Ord Radama to the bridge of the _Celestus_ with enough clarity to convey the man's tentative crossness.

As always, Visas stood facing the hologram though she could not see it. "My mission was not to benefit you, admiral," she replied, "and your duties are unchanged. See to the defense of our territory until our Master returns." With the flick of a thought, she reached to the controls and cut the transmission.

A moment passed in which silence held the bridge, as it now held the Malachor system. As the _Celestus_ continued to stalk the void there, Visas had tried to catch some lingering remnant of the darkness, of the wound that Revan's work had left there at the Mandalorian Wars' end, but there was nothing. As though the ill-fated fifth world had never been, there was neither great light or great darkness in the system, only the slightness of the Force itself, present there only as it was present in all places; no substance and no act, only potential.

Leofel, who had been near-silently conversing with the navigator, turned to Visas and drew near. "M'lady—I take it you will be returning to Dromund Kaas?"

She nodded. "Yes. Nothing remains for me here."

"What about us? It will take less than a day to reach Thule…"

"No, you will accompany me—and see the glory of the new Sith Empire."

The aura of the room was scented with trepidation as her announcement registered, but Leofel's voice betrayed none of it. "As you wish, m'lady. We can be ready for the first jump in moments."

"See to it."

They withdrew from one another, Leofel to the navigator's station and Visas to the spartan solitude of her chamber. The Nagian Corridor would take some time to travel. She had considered sending a transmission ahead of the trip, but decided there was no point in it. Though the significance of Malachor's second destruction would ultimately be nothing compared to its first, it had made an echo which would be heard across the galaxy by those who were awake to hear it; and it was certain that the Exile had heard it, had in some way seen the closing of the wound. It was a wound that she herself had made, and it had been precious to her, just as the wound that was now Katarr was precious to Visas.

Waiting for the jump to hyperspace, waiting for her next trial, she knelt and submerged herself in the Force. _As my feet walk the ashes of Katarr, I shall not fear, for in fear lies death; but on Katarr a deep shadow rests, and in the shadows there is power, and…_

* * *

A few sweet, boring days passed, all of them revolving around the flying curse which was the _Ebon Hawk_. The first was besmirched by a hangover, but things evened out soon enough. Between his officially joining the crew and the snafu on Daluuj, Cole hadn't had much of a chance to prove his worth as a mechanic, but he did so now, managing to finish tuning the power coupling with only a little help from the Remote.

True to the admiral's word, Ecksee was fully operational when they brought him back online—not to mention just as cranky as before.

During breaks, Atton and Cole occasionally played pazaak, but since they had already killed the ale and had no credits to bet between them—the latter of which, Cole was quick to point out, was not his fault—it was nothing to get excited over.

Atton spent one afternoon in the _Hawk_'s garage, trying to repair his lightsaber after Visas' lightning had shorted it out. As he'd suspected, the power cell was completely fried. Replacing that was easy enough, and it brought the weapon back to life. But no matter what tinkering he tried, its blade still sparked and crackled as resentfully as it ever had, and he gave up trying to stabilize it. In the end, it was just one more reminder not to rely on lightsabers.

Kaevee was something of a ghost during this time. Atton gathered that she was spending her time talking with Atris, sorting herself out and doing her peace-and-serenity-Force thing, so he left them to it. Once or twice Cole complained about the girl not having to pull her weight, but after three days half the spare parts in the cargo hold had been used up, and the _Ebon Hawk_ was about as ready for trouble as it had ever been.

On the third day's evening, Atton took dinner in his room, then wandered a few decks over to a quiet lounge, where he claimed a sofa in the corner and had a look around. Little groups of off-duty crewmembers and soldiers were scattered about, a few playing card games. He recognized pazaak and sakresh among them and mused that he might be able to make a few credits, if he could think of something he had that was worth betting.

He aimlessly stared out the viewport to his left—or tried to. It had been tinted almost to the point of opacity, but he could just barely perceive the vortex of hyperspace blurring past. He lost track of time until the clearing of a throat made him look back. He found the Devaronian looming over him.

"Captain Pollard. How you doing?"

The officer gave a courteous little smile that would have looked a lot better on the admiral's face. "Quite well, Rand. And you?"

"Never better."

"I understand your work on the _Ebon Hawk_ is finished."

"Yeah…"

"That's good. The _Valiant_'s dropping out of hyperspace in an hour; you're to gather your team and prepare for departure." Pollard offered Atton a datastick. "Proceed to this location. You'll be briefed and equipped for your next assignment there."

After eying the datastick soberly for a moment, Atton took it and got to his feet. "Sounds like a plan," he said, though it really sounded like maybe one-sixth of a plan. "I was getting too comfortable around here anyway… Guess things are really happening now, aren't they?"

"Yes. They are."

* * *

Though the pilot had left Kaevee alone when it came to the last repairs of the _Ebon Hawk_—which she was grateful for—he put her back in the co-pilot's seat for their almost unannounced departure. She still didn't feel at home aboard the ship, let alone at any of its controls, but the procedures Atton had drilled into her head were still there. When he threw the lever and shot them past the stars and into the blue abyss, she just held her breath and endured the little flash of sickness that came with it.

They talked a little as they went through the post-jump check, taking their time. It was late in the day. For the second or third time since they'd gotten the news of their new mission, Atton complained about the sparsity of details. Kaevee, however, thought he was secretly glad to be on the move again. For her part, she had mixed feelings about leaving the _Valiant_. She had no desire to see more action. On the other hand, though, maybe the mission would take them to a planet's surface, to a place where there was an _outside_, where there was breeze, dirt, animals, a sky…

"It's in a pretty out-of-the-way sector," Atton was saying, drumming his fingers on the console before him. "My guess is, they're going easy on us for this one. Probably no shooting, but who knows?"

Remembering how their supposedly easy trip to Daluuj had gone, Kaevee tensed for a moment. "I really hope not."

"Yeah, well…" A yawn devoured the rest of the pilot's sentence. Looking at her sideways, he started over. "I've got this. Why don't you get some sleep? You look like you need it."

_So do you,_ she thought as she got up. Instead she said, "Atton, tomorrow—I want you to start training me again."

"In what, Force stuff?"

She paused to bite her lip. "Whatever I need to know about."

"I dunno, kid. That's a _lot_ of things. You sure you're ready for that?"

_He's just teasing,_ she told herself. "Yes, I'm ready for that."

"Good… You'll get what you ask for."

Kaevee went out through the main hold, glancing port toward Atris' chamber, then paid the refresher a visit. When she came out, she found Cole standing a few feet off to the left. His gaze met and then bounced off of hers, and they shuffled past each other. Just before entering the refresher, though, the spacer stopped and said his first word to Kaevee since they had parted on Malachor V: "Hey."

She paused in the mouth of the corridor, turned to watch him over her shoulder, and waited, trying to pretend their last conversation hadn't happened. She didn't want to go to bed angry.

"Glad you're alive." Cole's look was difficult to peg—maybe apologetic, maybe something else.

"You too." There was nothing else Kaevee trusted herself to say, and before the torturous moment could go on, she hurried to the starboard dorm. While getting ready for bed, she looked at the door and nursed a brief moment of levity as she remembered coming through it one night and tripping over her laigrek.

Soon after she had turned off the lights and gotten into bed, the comforting feeling evaporated, leaving her with the starless dark and the sleepless tone of the engines. Chaos crept into her thoughts, whispering reminders of the deaths and losses behind her—and questions about the unknowns of the galaxy ahead of her.

A few moments passed, and the darkness lifted briefly as Cole entered and slunk his way into his cot in the opposite corner of the room. As the door slid itself shut and cut out the light of the rest of the _Ebon Hawk_, Kaevee recalled the spacer's tempestuous manner of sleeping with some dread. She wondered what might have happened to him to cause such an awful restlessness, but quickly enough she returned to her own worries and uncertainties.

It occurred to her that when she finally fell asleep, she would dream—and more likely than not, she would dream of Malachor. Maybe, then, that place was not completely silent, as she had supposed. Rolling onto her side, she reached a hand down into the compartment beneath her cot, where she groped about blindly for a moment before finding what she needed. Settling herself in again, she pictured the room of a thousand fountains and pressed Master Vrook's lightsaber to her heart as she waited for the night to pass.


End file.
